Photos of Chhatrapati Shivaji's forts in Guinness Book

Mumbai, July 30 (UNI) A photo exhibition on the forts of Chhatrapati Shivaji, held in Pune recently, has found mention in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest such photo display.

The Guinness Book of World Records has published these photographs under the Cherished Record category.

In the Pune exhibition, as many as 40,150 photographs of the 250 forts were displayed during June 28 to July 1.

The exhibition was hosted by rajashivaji.com, of which Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray is considered the guardian.

The certificate issued by the Guinness Book of World Records was shown to the media by Shivshahir Babasaheb Purandare and Raj Thackeray and its content was read out to mediapersons by Milind Verlekar, chief promoter of the website.

''This is my 'gurudakshina' to Babasaheb Purandare and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the two great people who kept the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji alive,'' said Raj Thackeray while talking to reporters here today.

Mr Verlekar said, in all, they have got 1.5 lakh photographs of 250 forts, out of which 40 forts are coastal.

He said professional trekkers took these photographs. The trekkers were also trained in video shooting and GPS mapping of all the forts.

Some 1,22,455 people visited the exhibition, which itself is a record, he said and added that a team of 325 people worked on this project for 74 days.

Mr Verlekar said HP company had earlier set a record by holding a photo exhibition of 33,670 photographs of smiling British people. He said all the photos in that exhition were of 6 x 4 size, while all photos in the exhibition on Shivaji's forts were of 6 x 8 size.

He said about Rs 18 lakh had already been spent on photographs and that they are planning to upload a digital web encyclopedia on Shivaji soon. The total project cost may run up to Rs 1.5 crore, he added.

UNI