India to build world's largest statue

[Skywizard]

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/images/news_large/news-buddha-statue.jpg
The statue will measure a whopping 597ft in height.

The 597ft behemoth known as the 'Statue of Unity' will honor Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's first deputy prime minister. With a completion time of 42 months and costs totaling almost half a billion dollars, the statue will tower over the current record holder, the 502ft tall China’s Spring Temple Buddha.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02719/Statues-graphic-On_2719719a.png

The new statue will be constructed on a small island near the Narmada Dam with a bridge, garden and amusement park nearby. Officials believe that the spectacle will significantly boost tourism in the region, however critics have argued that the move has ulterior political motives.

Decisions by officials to spend vast fortunes on tributes to past leaders is nothing new in the country. Mayawati, the former chief of Uttar Pradesh, was said to have spent over half a billion dollars on statues.

At a time when large numbers of people in India still live in poverty, the decision to spend vast sums of money on such seemingly frivolous pursuits has generated a substantial backlash from critics who believe that the funds would be better spent elsewhere.


Source: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/257244/india-to-build-worlds-largest-statue
Full Story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10417093/India-criticised-for-200m-tallest-statue-to-honour-founding-fathers.html


peace...
skywizard

[Mike Gorman]

Yes, the funds could definitely be better spent-it is disgusting how so many human beings have to live in India-life is cheap there, people do not matter much.
Psychopathic narcissists are everywhere...

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

This reminds me (very eerily) of the statue Nebuchadnezzar had built in the Bible...

"when the music played, everyone bowed to the golden image -- but Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednigo would not bow down".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_2

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Songe_Nabuchodonosor_statue.jpg

Some of us on Avalon had "seen" the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar (last month)

:(

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

p.s. did you guys catch the Jesus statue in Syria?

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2022175193_apxsyriajesusstatue.html

Originally published November 2, 2013 at 8:23 AM | Page modified November 2, 2013 at 10:36 AM

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In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue arises
In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country's civil war.


By DIAA HADID
Associated Press

BEIRUT —
In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country's civil war.

Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient times. The statue is 12.3 meters (40 feet) tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 32 meters (105 feet), organizers of the project estimate.

That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on Oct. 14 is remarkable. The project took eight years and was set back by the civil war that followed the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and the statue's safety is by no means guaranteed. It stands among villages where some fighters, linked to al-Qaida, have little sympathy for Christians.

So why put up a giant statue of Christ in the midst of such setbacks and so much danger?

Because "Jesus would have done it," organizer Samir al-Ghadban quoted a Christian church leader as telling him.

The backers' success in overcoming the obstacles shows the complexity of civil war, where sometimes despite the atrocities the warring parties can reach short-term truces.

Al-Ghadban said that the main armed groups in the area -- Syrian government forces, rebels and the local militias of Sednaya, the Christian town near the statue site -- halted fire while organizers set up the statue, without providing further details.

Rebels and government forces occasionally agree to cease-fires to allow the movement of goods. They typically do not admit to having truces because that would tacitly acknowledge their enemies.

It took three days to raise the statue. Photos provided by organizers show it being hauled in two pieces by farm tractors, then lifted into place by a crane. Smaller statues of Adam and Eve stand nearby.

The project, called "I Have Come to Save the World," is run by the London-based St. Paul and St. George Foundation, which Al-Ghadban directs. It was previously named the Gavrilov Foundation, after a Russian businessman, Yuri Gavrilov.

Documents filed with Britain's Charity Commission describe it as supporting "deserving projects in the field of science and animal welfare" in England and Russia, but the commission's accounts show it spent less than 250 pounds ($400) in the last four years.

Al-Ghadban said most of the financing came from private donors, but did not supply further details.

Russians have been a driving force behind the project -- not surprising given that the Kremlin is embattled Assad's chief ally, and the Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties. Al-Ghadban, who spoke to The Associated Press from Moscow, is Syrian-Russian and lives in both countries.

Al-Ghadban said he began the project in 2005, hoping the statue would be an inspiration for Syria's Christians. He said he was inspired by Rio de Janeiro's towering Christ the Redeemer statue.

He commissioned an Armenian sculptor, but progress was slow. A series of his backers died, including Valentin Varennikov, a general who participated in the 1991 coup attempt against then President Mikhail Gorbachev. He later sought President Vladimir Putin's backing for the statue project.

Varennikov died in 2009.

Another backer, Patriarch Ignatius IV, the Lebanon-based head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, died in 2012. He had donated the land for the statue, according to church official Bishop Ghattas Hazim.

By 2012, the statue was ready, but Syria was aflame, causing the project's biggest delay, al-Ghadban said.

Majority Sunni Muslims dominate the revolt, and jihadists make up some of the strongest fighting groups. Other Muslim groups along with the 10-percent Christian minority have stood largely with Assad's government, or remained neutral, sometimes arming themselves to keep hard-line rebels out of their communities.

Churches have been vandalized, priests abducted. Last month the extremists overran Maaloula, a Christian-majority town so old that some of its people still speak a language from Jesus' time.

On Tuesday a militant Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar al-Gharba, posted a YouTube video of himself smashing a blue-and-white statue of the Virgin Mary.

Al-Ghadban and the project's most important backer, Gavrilov, weighed canceling it.

They consulted Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John Yaziji. It was he who told them "Jesus would have done it."

They began shipping the statue from Armenia to Lebanon. In August, while it was en route, Gavrilov, 49, suffered a fatal heart attack, al-Ghadban said.

Eventually the statue reached Syria.

"It was a miracle," al-Ghadban said. "Nobody who participated in this expected this to succeed."

___

Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

[Shezbeth]

A testament to where the head of the decisive leadership is at.

"Forget ppl like Gandhi n such, let's make the world's largest politician!"

[Ellisa]

It is probably not for us to criticise the Indian nation, but spending 1/2 a billion on a statue of a politician is reprehensible when so many of its population are living in poverty. To start with much of rural India lacks safe, or any, sewerage, which leads to disease and epidemics. We all know that the desperate will take jobs in the garment trade with their dreadful safety record. There is so many more problems that could be improved, even solved, with a fraction of that money.

I know that many nations donate aid to India. I wonder why now. As I said it is not up to us to decide how they should spend their money, but on the face of it this seems to be a very flawed decision.

[ghostrider]

It is probably not for us to criticise the Indian nation, but spending 1/2 a billion on a statue of a politician is reprehensible when so many of its population are living in poverty. To start with much of rural India lacks safe, or any, sewerage, which leads to disease and epidemics. We all know that the desperate will take jobs in the garment trade with their dreadful safety record. There is so many more problems that could be improved, even solved, with a fraction of that money.

I know that many nations donate aid to India. I wonder why now. As I said it is not up to us to decide how they should spend their money, but on the face of it this seems to be a very flawed decision.

how many people could get a home with 500 million dollars ??? or how many people could get food , or medicine ??? this is what's wrong with earth , statues get more money and focus than the suffering of the people ...