Issue Nº401 – News in brief

Auroville International USA has helped many Auroville projects set up unique donor portals that allow them to collect donations in any currency through GooglePay, PayPal, Apple Pay, and credit card. Beginning from December 1st, any funds raised through one of these unique donor portals will be matched by AVI-USA.

Donations must be received through a unique donor portal created by AVI USA for a specific Auroville service or outreach project – they cannot support commercial work or personal expenses of any sort –and each project can only receive a maximum match of $2,500. AVI-USA will retain 10% of every donation to cover banking fees and other overhead costs.

Two members of the International Advisory Council wrote to the Working Committee of the Residents Assembly stressing the need for a road map for development to be presented “as a comprehensive vision, which integrates not only urban development, but the economic, environmental, educational and social development of the bioregion, for which Auroville has already made so much commendable work…

“We feel an urgent need for such a road map to be formulated, possibly on the basis of already existing studies or documents, i.e. without waiting for more complete plans currently under elaboration. In our perception, such a roadmap could be presented to the Governing Board, and its Chairman in particular, to our Council, and to the Government of India, and would in effect offer a way out of the current impasse.”

The RA TDC reports that they are meeting with technical persons and people with planning experience to bring together an informed road map for Auroville’s planning and development. Some of the elements to be included are: Auroville principles and processes; state and national requirements for planning and environment; documents and plans that are relevant to the process; and securing teams to help them take up the planning work in a participative way.

A concerned resident of AuroOrchard recently reported having heard “that up to 7 acres of prime roadside land of AuroOrchard were going to be exchanged with 9 acres in the city, to consolidate lands in the Master Plan area”. The land that has been earmarked for exchange was one of the few lands blessed by the Mother, who tasked AuroOrchard with growing food for Auroville. AuroOrchard is Auroville’s oldest, and one of the most productive farms. It was purchased by the Mother in 1965. Gérard, who was given the care of it by the Mother in 1969, has lived there and looked after the land for the last 53 years as the steward. Apparently, he was neither officially informed nor consulted about the proposed exchange.

The FA Housing Service recently announced that a dedicated team will be visiting communities to speak with residents. Community members can discuss any ongoing activities/plans that they are carrying out and if there are any challenges. They hope that this exercise will improve the connection between the housing team and all of the residents.

Meanwhile, the RA constituted Housing Board has written a report outlining several decisions taken by the people working in the Foundation Housing Service office, pointing out that this is being done outside of the community agreed-upon mandate. The RA FAMC and Housing Board have created a ‘working group’ to discuss and review topics together. One priority concern is for the residents who will be directly impacted by the development of future roads.

A number of assets have been built over the years in areas that are deemed reserved for other purposes according to the Master Plan. These areas include the Crown and the Outer Ring Road. Communities that will see many residential buildings demolished include Pony Farm, Horizon, and Sve Dame.

The Foundation ATDC has announced the formation of a ‘resettlement group’ to facilitate moving residents from these ‘red assets’ to another place. However, it is pointed out these actions are planned in spite of the fact that no Detailed Development Plans have been made or Environmental Clearance sought, as per the NGT order, and Auroville is still in the midst of a housing crisis with no adequate alternative housing for these ‘resettlements’. Meanwhile, the RA FAMC says its aim is to be proactive and to provide as much support as possible to those who are and will be impacted by the “Red Assets” list.

In Auroville Tomorrow no. 5, Anupama Kundoo, the head of Urban Design at the ATDC, introduced a proposal for independent transport networks in the city tied to the Crown. The red zone will include all public transport and motorized vehicles; the yellow zone will be completely pedestrian centric, free of any kind of transportation; the green zone will enable bicycle or even skateboard commute; and the blue zone will be a rather meditational route that will end near the Matrimandir lake.

Among other things, the Foundation BCC is currently reviewing maintenance, Temporary Out of Station and Silver Fund policies. From mid December they expect to reach out to the services that generally are supported by the BCC for their 2023-2024 budgetary needs.

The Foundation ATDC / L’avenir d’Auroville is creating an Auroville Procurement Service to provide all the construction materials and home appliances for building projects in Auroville. Currently, all the building projects in Auroville buy materials either through dealers or retailers. This new service will reduce the need for multiple people to bargain with the same vendors, and also to transport goods individually.

On 21st October, Tara Jauhar, who for many years has been the chairman of the Delhi Ashram, which is often frequented by Aurovilians, was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Confederation of Indian Universities (CIU) in recognition of her work in the field of education.

The students of Arulvazhi (school of Yoga and learning activities) won 14 prizes, out of which 8 stood for excellence in yoga, among 300 participants at the State level yoga competition in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, on 15 October 2022.

The Centre for Building Biology is conducting a survey to map the current levels of electromagnetic radiation in Auroville. The data will be inserted into the CSR Geomatics’ database and visualized on a related web GIS portal reachable at gis.avcsr.org.

Since a couple of years, Auroville Consulting has been looking for scalable solutions for climate action. One of the ones they have developed is a carbon converter which anybody can use to calculate their transport emissions, with an added option to plant trees and offset the same.

Last month they launched LiLa, a tool that conducts geospatial analysis to help optimize sustainable land-use planning. It uses satellite imagery, AI & GIS mapping which creates land-cover maps at high spatial resolution for any area of interest; detects degraded/unused lands; and evaluates these lands in regards to climate mitigation and adaptation interventions such as sustainable water management, reforestation and solar energy generation.

Using this tool, recently they were able to complete a land-suitability assessment for distributed solar energy resources for Mayiladuthurai District in Tamil Nadu.

Annapurna Farm has created an elevated pond on top of a hill. The hill was made from soil dug up in 2018 to double the size of the farm’s existing irrigation ponds, and so expand its rainwater harvesting capacity and depend less on groundwater. The elevated water body will serve as a buffer stock of water during the rice growing season, so that the farm becomes less vulnerable to the erratic power supply of the grid.

Paul from Botanical Gardens was recently at the 7th Global Conference of Botanical Gardens organized by Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) in Melbourne. There were over 500 attendees from 45 countries – from all of the continents of the world – and the work of the Auroville Botanical Gardens in restoration and plant conservation was very much appreciated.

This monsoon, Revelation Forest is offering a tree planting programme, including practical tree planting skills and the theoretical aspects of tree planting.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, WasteLess, in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu government, on 4th November rolled out an educational programme for government school students to raise awareness about microplastics and marine pollution. The programme will be offered in 200 schools in Tiruchi, Virudhanagar and Villupuram, benefitting 10,000 students.

On 3rd November, Dr Ravichandran, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt of India, visited Auroville along with Dr Ramanamurthy, Director of National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), to discuss the restoration of the eroded coast. Probir, Sunaina and Aurofilio from PondyCan explained the efforts of the past decades. After visiting the beaches at Sri Ma and Quiet, which were severely eroded due to the recent construction of groynes in Chinnamudaliarchavadi and Bommayapalayam, Dr. Ramanamurthy said that NCCR will immediately make scientific studies of this coast, based on which they would come up with possible solutions.

The RA Working Committee clarified that reports in the press that there were deliberate attempts by Auroville residents to engage in illegal activities relating to possession of statues were false. The RA WC asserted that to the best of their knowledge, none of statues seized by the Idols Wing are genuine “antiques” (i.e., older than 100 years), and no Auroville residents broke any rule or law in this connection. Also, full cooperation was extended to the relevant authorities at all times.

To commemorate Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth year, PRISMA has published large-format Braille versions of A Dream and Aims and Ideals of Auroville and these have been sent to fifty centres for the visually-impaired across India.

They are also preparing a Tamil-language Braille publication which presents Auroville and its work over many years, and building the relevant technology to produce audio books to assist people who are blind, visually-impaired or otherwise print-disabled.

An Aurovilian has issued an appeal for people to come forward to form a team to support elderly Aurovilians who have been particularly impacted by the current turmoil. This could include engaging them in conversation or song, reading to them, playing games, or just sitting with them in silence. She notes that “plenty of research can be found online about the mutual benefits of inter-generational connections and support”.

For a few years, YouthLink have organized events to bring the community together. Last month they hosted a vegan potluck and a Blind Babble game session to help people connect. Now they are looking for a place to host their next event called “dancing together”, where they would like to invite all the community to come together, celebrate and dance during a full evening.

The RA Working Groups have launched a survey via mass bulletin to know the community’s thoughts on the possibility of starting a restorative process between the RA, GB, and IAC. A restorative process is any process whose main goal is to create mutual understanding and restore relationships. The outcome of the survey will be used by the RA-appointed working groups as a first exploration into when, and how, a restorative process might be started.

On 21st November residents were invited to the Unity Pavilion to see a video presentation by Raghu Ananthanarayanan, who had been invited by the GB and IAC to “foster a dialogue that will hopefully help address some of the core issues dividing the community, a dialogue that an outside, neutral voice can best foster”. It was followed by an online discussion with Raghu. More on this in our next issue.

On 31st October, some members of the AV Community Gathering Team attended a meeting in Chennai with the Chairman of the Governing Board, Shri RN Ravi. The team described the meeting as pleasant and respectful, and that they felt heard by him. They shared about their work as a Community Gathering Team, and the visa issue and concerns about the current approach to development and parallel working groups, among other points. The Chairman listened and responded with some points of his own, which included a concern that not enough Aurovilians work in the Matrimandir, lack of farming outputs, and the need for an Exit Policy.

On 13th October, the Madras High Court dismissed a Writ Petition challenging the validity of an Office Order issued by the Governing Board reconstituting the Auroville Town Development Council (ATDC). The most important rulings were: 1. Only the Governing Board has powers to constitute committees under Section 16 of the Auroville Foundation Act, and it is the only governing authority under the Act. 2. The Residents’ Assembly can only recommend, assist and advise the Governing Board, and the function of the Residents’ Assembly is only to supplement the powers of the Governing Board, and not to supplant the powers vested with the Governing Board as per the Auroville Foundation Act. 3. The present TDC was legally constituted by the Governing Board, and has all the rights and powers to abide by its mandate.

Tindivanam Court - Abri/Ami/Evergreen land claim. The case was listed for Friday 18th November, but the judge was on leave. The judgment has been adjourned until Monday 28th November.

Meanwhile the case of the appeal of the Foundation Office to the Supreme Court regarding the National Green Tribunal Ruling has been postponed until January 2023.