How air pollution, a dying river and defecating insects threaten the Taj Mahal
by Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times
May 28, 2018
4 minutes
AGRA, India - India's most famous poet, Rabindranath Tagore, once wrote that the Taj Mahal stood on the banks of the river Yamuna "like a teardrop suspended on the cheek of time."
One wonders whether the late Nobel laureate could have found a lyrical description of the latest threat facing the grand, white-marble monument: millions of defecating insects.
Excrement from mosquitolike bugs breeding in the heavily polluted river has stained parts of the 17th-century mausoleum green, while the footsteps and palms of thousands of daily visitors have darkened the stone floors and intricately patterned walls of a structure long regarded as the pinnacle of Mughal architecture.
India's Supreme Court
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