Issue Nº301

Aug 2014 (135 months ago)
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“Have faith and stop criticising!”

Feature, By Alan and Carel

The term of office of Shri N. Bala Baskar, IAS (retd.) the Secretary to the Auroville Foundation, will end on August 16th. He had been Secretary from 1996 till 2001, and rejoined the Auroville Foundation on March 8th, 2012.

Wanted: a Working Committee

Feature, By Alan

Organisation: Satprem’s letter to Kireet, 1983

An open letter, By Satprem (Bernard Enginger)

Land purchase in the early years

Feature, By Anjani and Dayanand

Little is known about those early days before Auroville’s inauguration, when land purchase and the first Auroville developments were started by the Sri Aurobindo Society.

Exploring the history of Auroville

Feature, By Gilles Guigan

Records of Auroville’s history during Mother’s lifetime are found in periodicals (Mother India, the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, the Information Letter of the Sri Aurobindo Society and the Gazette Aurovilienne), in books published by disciples (Satprem, Shyam Sunder, Huta, Savitra), in archives (Sri Aurobindo Society, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville), in personal archives as well as in published and unpublished interviews of disciples (Roger Anger and others).

Yatra’s journey through the arts

Feature, By Lesley

‘Full Stop’ CO-directors Raghu and Yatra Srinivassan, and cameraman Mohandas

Temperate July evenings are usually the perfect setting for outdoor functions in and around Auroville. But when the skies open and wash out a performance and its audience of 125 people, it says much about an organisation’s professionalism that it can bundle the audience, projector and sound system into the nearby building, and have the show up and running again in a mere five minutes.

The Craft of Making Place: Lessons for Auroville?

Feature, By Inge van Alphen

Celebrating the renovation of a crossing

In September 2009, the first meeting for “Landscaped Spaces” took place in Auroville. It followed a proposal by Mr. Doshi, the Chairperson of Auroville’s Town Development Council, to create interesting public spaces at various Auroville locations for people to gather and socialize.

Acres for Auroville (Letters)

Letter to the Editors, By Aryadeep and Alain Grandcolas

News in Brief

Extreme weather In the fourth week of June, 2014, the thermometer reached 41 degree Celsius for three consecutive days. The UV Index, adopted and standardized by the UN’s World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization in 1994, was at its highest at 11 (extreme risk).

Last school moves After a period of 30 years, Last School has finally moved from the Last School compound near Aspiration into new premises between Kalabhumi and Future School.

Land donations Kalya, a Tamil Aurovilian and executive of Progress Landscape and also working for the Town Development Council, has offered 3.5 acres of land situated in the Greenbelt to Auroville.

Pyramids for NESS science teaching The New Era Secondary School (NESS) has been granted approval from the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) for the introduction of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Computer Science to the curriculum with effect from April 1st, 2014.

Graphic novel about Sri Aurobindo Chandigarh filmmaker Gaurav Chhabra is currently undertaking a 6 months artist’s residency at Kala Kendra. He is developing an illustrated storybook about Sri Aurobindo, and will be joined in this task by Egyptian artist Tarek Kamal.

Auroville Festival in Chennai Following the successful Auroville Festival in Delhi in 2012, the Governing Board, in their meeting of November 2013, has approved a similar event to be held in Chennai as many state government officials are unaware that Auroville is in Tamil Nadu and what it actually does.

Auromode Atelier closed Auromodè Atelier has close due to the high competition for ready-made garments for export, as a result of which the unit has been badly performing for the last three years.

Extension of the electricity-in-kind scheme The Budget Coordination Committee (BCC) has agreed that Varuna, Auroville, an Auroville unit that operates two wind generators owned by the Auroville Foundation, will cover the electricity bills of all grid-connected residents receiving a City-Services maintenance and those who pay the full monthly contribution of Rs. 2,850 to the Central Fund.

Land issues The Land Resource Management team reported that in the period of March to May 2014 it had been doing 25 land surveys and dealt with a number of boundary disputes and plot fencing issues, land disputes, a land encroachment including the manhandling of the steward, land access issues and a number of court cases dealing with land issues.

Police patroling The BCC has asked community feedback on the police patrolling in Auroville in view of the high costs of security. For the financial year 2013-14, the Auroville Security Budget was Rs.

In Memoriam

Toshi Malik

In memoriam: — By Dharmesh

Aurovilian of the first hour, Toshi (Santosh) Malik, wife of late Prem Malik, left her body on June 20th after a year’s illness in New Delhi.

Jargan (Maurizio d’Angelo)

In memoriam:

Jagran (Maurizio d’Angelo) passed away at AUM hospital on May 26th, 2014, in the presence of his son Sid and daughter Alice. He was 71 years old.

Rakesh Tiwari

In memoriam:

Rakesh Tiwari, who joined Auroville in 2002, passed away on July 17th. His sudden death was due to a heart related medical condition. He was 40 years old.

Danapalan

In memoriam:

Danapalan, father of Aurovilians Kanniappan, Nagappan and Arumugam passed away on July 27th. He was in his eighties. Danapalan gave his land to Auroville and has been working for Auroville from the early days, starting with the Matrimandir Nursery where he was driving the first bullock cart of Auroville bringing compost from Pondicherry.