India has been working to have this cultural site get a UNESCO tag for a very long time...
Digital Desk: UNESCO has listed Santiniketan, the city where Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore built Visva-Bharati over a century ago, as a World Heritage Site. The announcement was shared on 'X' on Sunday by the world body.
"New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Santiniketan, #India. Congratulations!" it posted.
India has been working to have this cultural site, which is in Bengal's Birbhum district, to get a UNESCO tag for a very long time.
Santiniketan's inclusion on the list was decided upon during the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee, which is currently underway in Saudi Arabia.
A "proud moment for all Indians," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Happy that Santiniketan has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a manifestation of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's vision and India's rich cultural heritage. All Indians should be proud of this,” he wrote in a post on X.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of Bengal, expressed her joy and pride at Santiniketan's ultimate inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Famous conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah claimed she was "dancing with joy" after hearing the news. She had worked on preparing a dossier for its inclusion in the list.
It may not have been the best time to work on the dossier in 2009, but she said, "We always believed in the beauty of Santiniketan, and today we feel vindicated seeing it on the UNESCO list."
The international advisory organization ICOMOS proposed the historic location for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List a few months ago.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which has its headquarters in France, is a global non-governmental organization devoted to the preservation and improvement of architectural and landscape heritage throughout the world. Its members include professionals, experts, representatives from local authorities, businesses, and heritage organizations.
According to a description of the landmark on the official website of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Santiniketan, a university town more than 160 kilometres from Kolkata, was initially an ashram built by Rabindranath Tagore's father Debendranath Tagore where anyone, regardless of their caste and creed, could come and meditate before the one Supreme God.
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