Auroville's monthly news magazine since 1988

Issue Nº377

Dec 2020 (59 months ago)
Download PDF (free download)

Goodbye Dr. Karan Singh

Feature, By Dr Karan Singh

With Sir Mark Tully at the Auroville Festival Chennai, March 2015

On November 23rd, the term of office of Dr Karan Singh and the other members of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation came to an end.

Text of the tribute from the Auroville video

Feature, By Abha Prakash

The importance of the International Advisory Council (IAC)

Feature, By Alan and Frederick

The sense of community

An interview with Alain Bernard, Manoj Pavithran and Sathish Arumugan, By Alan

For many, the bonfires at the Matrimandir amphitheatre express a close sense of community

The term ‘community’ is used in a very loose way in Auroville. Sometimes it refers to the settlement where people live, sometimes to national sub-groups, sometimes to the residents as a whole, and sometimes to an idealistic or occult aspect of Auroville.

How did Auroville’s communities get their names?

Feature, By Vijay, Bobby Keeping, Franz, Christoph Pohl, Daniel Emden, Judith, Paul Vincent, Tim, Cecilia, Achilles, Govinda, Carel and Rolf Lieser

Saraswati puja at Fraternity on 14 October 1972

In the October issue of Auroville Today, we published a humorous little piece that pondered how the names of Auroville’s communities came about.

A new breeze called Soffio

Feature

3 Simple and elegant interiors

By the end of October, the last houses in the new community of Soffio in the Residential Zone were completed. Auroville Today spoke to architect Dorle.

Findhorn and Auroville

Feature, By Peter

Circle dance in the Universal Hall of Findhorn

Findhorn is an eco-village, a spiritual New Age community, and a well known alternative education centre in Britain. Founded by Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean (who only passed away this January aged 100), the community emerged through a mixture of the spiritual guidance received by Eileen, Dorothy’s connection with the nature spirits and Peter’s physical work in grounding the guidance.

Urban Forestry: an introduction by the Treecare team

Feature, By Divya Lieser

From left to right: Top: Jonas, Anadi and Bagirath from TreeCare; Bottom: Balu, Priya, Nivetha and Inge from Auroville Green Practices

Since July this year, Auroville Green Practices (AGP), a community organisation managed by Auroville Consulting, has been hosting numerous webinars, with over 1,500 people participating on more than a dozen topics, such as zero waste, upcycling, water management, vegan raw food, permaculture, and earth architecture, natural building technologies, Ferro-cement, solar energy, and many more.

Explaining the stratum

Feature, By Carel

The excavation of the test pond for the Matrimandir Lake

In order to best determine how the lake around Matrimandir should be constructed, a large test pond is being excavated, exposing layers of earth, gravel, sand and clay.

Seductive simplicity

Reflection, By Alan

Letter to the Editors

Letter to the Editors, By Joel Goodman

Population statistics

Feature, By Peter

Annapurna Farm struggles The dry summer has delayed the start of the paddy season at Annapurna, Auroville’s largest farm. Annapurna’s traditional paddy varieties need a growing season of 140-150 days to mature and are season bound.

Auroville Foundation issues The term of office of the present members of the Governing Board ended on November 23rd. When this issue went to the press, there was no news about the appointment of new members.

Cyclone Nivar The first cyclone of the season, named ‘Nivar’, made landfall near Marakkanam, north of Auroville, in the early hours of November 26th. Throughout the night Auroville was subjected to storms and heavy rains, with occasional thunder and lighting and some eerie silences in between.

Pitchandikulam Forest Newsletter Pitchandikulam Forest has issued its 2019-2020 newsletter which includes: reflective musings on the 47-year old history of Pitchandikulam Forest; the story of a monograph on the Owls of South Asia; a report on Pitchandikulam Forest’s nursery which is responsible for the growing of around 20,000 seedlings a year to help re-establish the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) in Tamil Nadu; a report on the Environmental Leadership and Skill Development Programme for 350 Rural Women; the work of Pitchandikulam Forest in building water retention landscapes and the restoration of the twin lakes of Siruseri Chennai; environmental artwork for Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Bangalore, on a 25-acres ECOZONE; and creating a master plan for an Ecopark/Nature lab and teaching space for practitioners of Restoration Ecology on a piece of land near Ousteri lake.

The impact of COVID on internal transactions in Auroville A study made by Lyle on transfers made within the Financial Service between services/units and between services/units and individuals shows the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: there were 38% less transfers in the COVID-19 months in 2019-20 than in 2018-19.

Gold award for EYER SLOW GREEN in China The Handle Climate Change Film Festival 2020 in Shenzhen, China, awarded Aurovilian Christoph Pohl the Gold Award for his film Ever Slow Green, about Auroville’s forests.

The Auroville Entry Policy 2020 / Entry & Exit Regulations / Exit Policy A decision of the Residents’ Assembly called by the Working Committee on the proposed new Entry Policy failed due to a lack of quorum (10% of adult residents).

Aurovilians abroad can return The Government of India has agreed to cancel the suspension of all visas other than tourist visas, which means that all Aurovilians abroad who hold an Entry Visa for Auroville can now return.

Right of Way disputed Members of the Forest Group and many others Aurovilians are objecting to the partial clearing of the existing forests to allow for so-called Rights of Ways (RoWs) – three-metres wide stretches of open land to lay High Tension and other cables – along the proposed Crown road, the proposed Outer Ring Road and the proposed Radials, as has recently been advised by the Acting Secretary of the Auroville Foundation to the Town Development Council (TDC).

New land purchases Since the start of the seventh year of Acres for Auroville, thanks to donors to Acres for Auroville and Lands For Auroville United, six new Greenbelt plots have been purchased, adding 6.47 acres of rich agricultural land and helping consolidate other land.

Matrimandir works Work at the Matrimandir is focused on three projects: the continuing development of the Garden of the Unexpected; the building of the foundation for a group of large quartz crystals in the Garden of Existence; and the construction of a new section of the cobblestone road encircling the Matrimandir gardens.

The Spirit of Auroville in Chinese Auro e-Books has published a bilingual English-Chinese version of the book “The Spirit of Auroville”. The Chinese translation was done by Anandi Zhang and proofread by Ni Hui, while Olivier Barot took care of the English text and picture selection.

Auronet Guidelines The Auroville Council has published draft guidelines for the publication of documents and views on the Auronet, the Intranet portal of Auroville.