The Australian, a leading newspaper in Australia run by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, carried a cartoon on Monday depicting Indians as starving and forced to eat solar panels, which led to outrage on social media.
The cartoon was published two days after over 190 nations, including India, signed the historic climate change agreement in Paris on Saturday.
The cartoon shows an emaciated Indian family breaking up solar panels and trying to eat them with 'mango chutney'.
Chris Kenny, an associate editor at the paper, told IBTimes India that according to him, the cartoon was "mocking the Paris deal for spending aid on climate instead of reducing poverty" and that "solar panels are not the greatest need in developing world".
However, the cartoon was criticised for being racist, and netizens took to Twitter to condemn the picture drawn by The Australian cartoonist Bill Leak.
'Bill Leak' and 'Indians' were trending topic in Australia on Twitter on Monday. Indians are among the largest groups of migrants in Australia.
The Australian cartoon comes days after a controversial cartoon by The New York Times that depicted India as an elephant that was shown blocking the 'Paris climate summit' train, after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for developed nations to take responsibility and allow developing nations to grow.
Here are some of the Twitter reactions to The Australian's racist cartoon --
World #journalism: The Australian accused for bad-taste cartoon on #Indians #theaustralian #australia pic.twitter.com/rQ4UkJDKYP
— Matteo Fagotto (@MatteoFagotto) December 14, 2015
Jesus the @australian published a cartoon so racist I'm lost for words..... https://t.co/tCl94aLKWm
— Dianne Janes (@dianne_janes) December 13, 2015
Racist cartoon of the day courtesy of Murdoch's @australian https://t.co/IZhDQNiGeA — morebento (@morebento) December 13, 2015
Racist cartoon in the Australian today by one of the nation's nastiest & most out-of-touch commentators, Bill Leak. https://t.co/AMLhcRJVef
— Matt Akersten (@MattAkersten) December 13, 2015
Incredibly racist cartoon from The Australian. India are doing orders-of-magnitude more in renewables than we are: https://t.co/3qlfQlRNX0 — Chris Marmo (@kurisu) December 14, 2015