Big Buddha

 (AP) NEW DELHI - India, always eager to outdo China, plans to build the world’s tallest statue of Buddha at 152.4 meters (500 feet), a newspaper reported Sunday. The bronze statue, three times as high as the Statue of Liberty in New York, will be the showcase of a 300 million-dollar park in Kushinagar.

     The tallest Buddha statue now is the 71-meter (233-foot) Leshan Buddha in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, completed in the eighth century AD in the prosperous Tang era.

     In recent years, India has increasingly been trying to attract tourists to Buddhist historical sites, with direct flights launched to Buddhism’s holy places from Sri Lanka and Thailand.