@auroville.org.in

The RA-WCom has issued a warning that the email address @auroville.org.in is no longer safe as it is currently under unknown administration. The Working Committee approved by the Governing Board (GB-WCom) publicly objected to this warning. Accusing the RA WCom of misleading the community. This in turn evoked a strong response from the RA-WCom which stated that the announcement of the GB-WCom was made by people “impersonating the Working Committee with the support of the Office of the Secretary” and that “as often with AVFO appointees of the AVFO, the management of the domain @auroville.org.in and the associated workspace is indeed opaque and secretive.” The RA-WCom recalled that the difficulty in extracting information about the management of the @auroville.org.in administration has been immense. A Right To Information (RTI) request had been filed in August 2022 seeking this very information. Amongst other things, the RTI asked for the identities of the administrators of the auroville.org.in mailboxes, details of their scope of duties, letters of appointment, lines of managerial reporting and information regarding who authorised the appointment of Administrators. This information was however denied. An appeal was filed against the non-disclosure with the Central Information Commission (CIC). On 13 February 2024, the Information Commissioner judged that “…the replies given by the respondent [i.e. the Auroville Foundation] in all the cases were evasive and misleading.’ However, the information requested has still not been provided.