Issue Nº383-384

“Vaccination lag in rural India points to a looming crisis” runs the May 19 front page article of The Hindu, one of India’s national newspapers.

Dear Subscriber, India is in the second wave of COVID-19 and Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry have been in many weeks of lockdown. It was therefore not possible to print Auroville Today at the usual time.

In April and May 2021, India witnessed a surge in COVID-19 infections, with the country seeing over 3,50,000 fresh cases of COVID-19 daily, one of the highest one-day tallies anywhere in the world and the number of deaths was also increasing every day.

Auroville’s Institute of Integral Health Santé and the Auroville Village Action Group have issued the booklet “Nal Valvu” (Good and meaningful life), which aims at raising awareness about COVID-19 – how it spreads, how to manage the risk of infection, what Community transmission and herd immunity are, and how the Covishield vaccine effects immunity.

On June 2, 2021, the Working Committee informed the community that Gujarat-cadre IAS officer Dr. Jayanti S. Ravi, who has been serving as Principal Secretary in the Gujarat Health and Family and Welfare Department, has been appointed as Secretary of the Auroville Foundation on deputation.

In its May report to the community, the Working Committee informed that the appointment of the Chairman and members of the Governing Board, vacant since November 2020, and the appointment of the members of the International Advisory Council, vacant since September 2017, is still awaited.

The lockdown which began in March 2020 required schools to shift from classroom teaching to online teaching. Auroville Today interviewed Divya Lieser, a teacher in Future School, to understand the challenges of online teaching and to hear about her other perspectives on education in Auroville.

While Tamil Nadu is in a second lockdown, Auroville entrepreneurs reflect on how they handled the first lockdown.

The following is a selection of reminiscences about Kottakarai community in the 1970s by its members. These were first published in the 2020 Fall-Winter issue of AVI-USA Connect magazine.

Janet Fearn was one of the very first people to settle in Auroville. In 1997, along with her friend, Philip Melville, she decided to create a programme for Newcomers which would tell them about the early history of Auroville.

That’s me - the baby sitting on the edge of the windowsill – one of the first children to live in Auroville. I was born in Kampala, Uganda, and I came to Pondicherry with Shyama, my mother, and my two brothers in 1965 when I was one-and-a-half years old.

Rena and Agnes are a bustling duo raising our consciousness about waste in Auroville. They focus on promoting good segregation and organising a clean waste centre.

One year ago, people searching YouTube for videos about Auroville would have noticed that many of the items that first showed up were produced by people who had visited Auroville for only a few days.

Integrated Animal Care Centre (IACC) was started in 2005. It is a legacy of Ann Plummer. She was known as “Animal Care Ann” as she used to give food and look after stray dogs and cats.

Psychologist Jerry Beusen implemented Mattram, Auroville’s first mental health unit, three years ago. Mattram means ‘change’ or ‘transformation’ in Tamil, and the unit is served by a team of professional psychologists, psychotherapists, a psychiatrist and counsellors.

In Eyes of Evolution Aurovilian psychologist Gerard Beusen (Jerry) presents a brief manual for self-discovery and transformation. It is based upon the ‘Seven Eyes’ approach which he has developed over many years through inner work and the contributions of people who participated in his workshops.