Taj's minaret pinnacle comes off during maintenance

The pinnacle of one of the minarets of the Taj Mahal had fallen off while the work of cleaning and sprucing up the minarets was going on. Workers found the pinnacle on the wooden platform they had erected for the maintenance work. The fall of the pinnacle raised worries that the minaret of the structure might have weakened. At present chemicals are being used for the cleaning up. Three of the four minarets have faded, for which the cleaning work has been taken up. Scaffoldings have been put up at the three minarets. Officials of the Archaeological Survey of India have blamed monekys for the minaret pinnacle coming off. They covered the pinnacle base with green cloth. The pinnacle was going to be replaced by Tuesday. While it is routine maintenance work, the expected visitors to the Taj are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, on April 16. The couple will be visiting the monument 24 years after the Prince's mother, Lady Diana, had visited the monument. At that time, Diana's picture on a marble bench had become iconic. It has since been called `Diana bench.'