Taj Mahal joined the Seven Wonders via global poll

July 09: India’s pride and symbol of love and passion, Taj Mahal finally get the position among the new seven wonders as it deserves. The unofficially declaration held in a crowded soccer stadium at Lisbon in Portugal on 07.07.07 Saturday night. It joined the other six greatest monuments including ‘Great wall of China’ and Peru’s Machu Picchu.

More than 100 million voters voted for this contest, said organizers on Saturday night. Taj Mahal joined the three Asian and two Latin American monuments along with only one European wonder. The Asian wonders are: ‘Taj Mahal’ of India, ‘Great Wall of China’ and ‘Petra’ of Jordan while in the Latin American monuments, ‘Chichen Itza’ of Mexico, ‘Christ Redeemer’ of Brazil and ‘Machu Picchu’ of Peru could get place in the list. ‘The Roman Colloseum’ of Italy is a single monument of Europe could able to get listed in the new wonders list.

Millions of people along with presented audience were cheered when Hollywood’s actor Ben Kingsley announced the list. The ceremony was live telecasted across the world. These new wonders replace the old wonders selected by Greek Scholars more than 2,000 years ago. The old wonders were: ‘The Hanging Gardens’ of Babylon, ‘The Statue of Zeus’ at Olympia, ‘The Temple of Artemis’ at Ephesus, ‘The Mausoleum’ at Halicarnassus, ‘The Colossus’ of Rhodes, ‘The Lighthouse’ of Alexandria and ‘The Great Pyramid’ at Giza, Egypt in which only the Giza’s Pyramid is still in existence and the organizers have honoured it by giving a special category of wonder.

Though, UNESCO has already told in its own website that there is no relationship of this poll and its result with ‘UNESCO’s World Heritage sites’, neither these monuments are officially accepted as the criteria and process are unscientific and un-educative. Still it is a matter of pride for the countries which monuments have been selected.

Many Indians expressed their joy after the final results. Venugopal Dhoot, President of ‘The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry said, “This will give a new impetus to the tourism industry in the country” while A.G. K. Menon, the Delhi Chapter Convenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), said, “I over joy the result but I have no doubt regarding the beauty of Taj. The Taj has always been the most visited and most popular Indian tourist destination. People abroad consider the monument synonymous with India.” Mr. Menon call the voting procedure a “publicity stunt”, but he warned to the government and administration that the number of tourist may exceed many times that can create problem to handle them.

On the other hand, Ajai Agrawal, the president of Taj Conservation Committee was extremely happy with the results and asked to set up an international airport at Agra for the comfort of the visitors.

Swiss millionaire Bernard Weber initiated this campaign in 1999 and the process of global voting begins in late 2005. Every people across the world had right to cast a vote by phone or over the Internet or via sms to pick modern-day Seven Wonders of the World from the list of 20 monuments.