Working visit to India ‘hectic, but successful,’ says St. Kitts and Nevis PM, ends with a four-hour pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal

St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas at the Taj Mahal

BASSETERRE,ST. KITTS, APRIL 9TH 2012 (CUOPM) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has described the four-day working visit to India as “hectic but successful.

“It was an education into the resourcefulness of a people in a country with vast resources and potential which less than twenty years ago was at the point of bankruptcy,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

On Saturday morning, Prime Minister Douglas and his delegation were invited on a specially-arranged four hour “pilgrimage” from New Delhi to the Taj Mahal in Agra, an ancient and former capital city of India.

The Taj Mahal is considered one of the world’s most famous buildings, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, as a monument of Love and Death in memory of his favourite queen Arjumand Bano Begum , entitled “The Lady of the Taj.”

She had died in June1631 at the age of 38 years in child birth with her fourteenth child for the Emperor.

Hundreds of visitors at the Taj Mahal

This mausoleum which houses the mortal remains of the Emperor and his Queen, isa sublime garden-tomb costing nearly 41million rupees and 500 kilos of gold, and engaged about 20,000 labourers for 17 years to complete it in 1648.

The Taj Mahal is the most beautiful building of the world, made of white marble, with its perfect proportions and exquisite craftsmanship and has earned the description as “a vision, a dream, a poem, a wonder.”

The Taj Mahal receives about 18,000 visitors a day and is to Indians and their Tourism what Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is to Kittitians and Nevisians and the Federation’s international tourism.

Prime Minister Douglas is accompanied by His Excellency Mr. Kevin Isaac, St. Kitts and Nevis’ High Commissioner in London and Senior Assistant Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Ms. Beverly Knight.

The St. Kitts and Nevis leader is the second Caribbean Prime Minister to visit India this year. In January, the Hon. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, thePrime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago visited the Asian nation.