Quick stop at Taj Mahal, then it's on to business for PM

Helen Clark visits the Taj Mahal yesterday. Picture / Reuters

By RUTH BERRY in Agra

Indian authorities cleared the Taj Mahal of tourists for Prime Minister Helen Clark as she began the first visit by a New Zealand leader to the subcontinent in nearly 20 years.

She arrived in New Delhi by air early yesterday and then travelled to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, one of the world's most famous historic landmarks. The Prime Minister was escorted under a black umbrella after arriving by motorcade.

Hundreds of locals were prevented from moving around the town of Agra so the motorcade could make a rapid visit to the site.

India is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Taj Mahal, the white marble structure built by Mugal Emperor Shah Jehan as a tomb for his favourite wife.

Asked how she felt sitting on the seat in front of the Taj Mahal - the same place where a dejected Princess Diana was photographed, making plain her estrangement from the Prince of Wales - Helen Clark joked: "Wilting".

Given the 34C heat, it wasn't so surprising.

Later, inside the mausoleum, the Muslim invocation "Allah o akbar" (God is great) echoed from the domed ceilings in a demonstration of the acoustics.

The Prime Minister's visit has been overshadowed by ructions at home over the future of Cabinet minister John Tamihere, and tension over an Indian newspaper article asserting that she would tell India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, limiting nuclear weapons.

India's High Commissioner in New Zealand, Harish Dogra, joined Helen Clark and her entourage on the private plane the Indian Government chartered for her, heading from Delhi to Bangalore via Agra.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff has questioned whether Mr Dogra played a role in promulgating the controversial story published in India last week.

After her visit to the Taj Mahal, Helen Clark will spend today in Bangalore fostering business links between the two countries in India's IT capital.

Her husband, Professor Peter Davis, will join her in Bangalore.

During her visit, she will meet the President, the Prime Minister and the leader of the ruling Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi.

Helen Clark will stop in Singapore for a day on her way back to NZ and will arrive home on Friday.