India’s jewel of Muslim art makes it that much easier to live-tweet your tour.
The Taj Mahal now has free Wi-Fi, because what good is the world’s most iconic example of Mughal architecture if you can’t FaceTime your cousin with its massive, white-marble dome looming behind you.
India’s federal information technology minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, inaugurated the new service with a tweet on Tuesday. State-run telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam is providing the connection, as part of a government program to increase internet access in major cities and popular tourist attractions. Visitors can use free Wi-Fi for up to 30 minutes, and purchase more time through a subscription plan, if they plan on doing an inordinate amount of Facebooking from the 17th-century masoleum’s famously symmetrical grounds.
Expanding India’s broadband infrastructure has been a major initiative of social media savvy Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. According to a 2014 study from McKinsey and Facebook, India still has one billion people without internet access.
Many on Twitter have been celebrating the development, with the hashtag WiFiTaj, but as the Wall Street Journal points out, there have been a few critics. “With #WifiTaj now nobody will admire the beauty of #TajMahal any more because people will be busy in posting their selfies,” writes one concerned user.
As of press time, there is no explicit ban on selfie sticks, though they have been confiscated before.
Sources: Travel and Leisure
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