MADRAS, India — The Taj Mahal has always been considered a wonder. As India's best known monument, this white-marble icon is now ranked among the "New Seven Wonders of the World," along with the Great Wall of China and Rome's Colosseum.

The selection of the Taj Mahal as a "Wonder" by virtue of tallying a hundred million votes cast for it over the Internet, telephone and "short-message services" has made India understandably proud. Results of the new ranking were announced in Lisbon recently by Indian Bollywood star Bipasha Basu.

India's national poet, Rabindranath Tagore, once called the Taj Mahal a "teardrop on the cheek of time."