Bliss forest

The National Green Tribunal verdict and appeal The Auroville Universal Township Master Plan (Perspective 2025) is a perspective and directional document that was approved in 2001 by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) – now Ministry of Education (MoE) – and published by the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation in the Gazette of India in 2010.

On the 4th January, many people were shocked to see many Service trees (Peltophorum pterocarpum/ Copper Pod tree) being felled on the Crown between the Solar Kitchen and Mahalakshmi Home.

On April 28th, 2022, the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Chennai, comprising judicial member Justice K. Ramakrishnan and expert member K.

About 30 non-Indian Aurovilians who had joined efforts to stop bulldozers destroying the Crown Road stretch through the Bliss and Darkali forests, have received visits from officers of the Regional Registration Office, requesting to see their passport and Residential Permit, asking if they had been joining the ‘agitation’

This issue is almost entirely devoted to the tumultuous events of the last weeks which saw bulldozers removing trees planted by Auroville foresters and Auroville habitations in the Youth Centre, to clear a path for the Right of Way of the Crown, which is intended to connect the four zones of the city.

As a therapist I know that one of the first steps to healing is to acknowledge trauma, whether individual or collective. This is an unusual article in that I invite the reader to hold and witness with compassion our inner and outer diversity as a community.

A year ago, in February 2020, there was an attempt to survey a route through the Youth Centre and Bliss forest for the laying of a High Tension cable.

Bliss forest is a city park that is densely planted to be a forest. Aurovilians from South Korea may be familiar with a similar concept in the city of Seoul.

If we stand by the Charter of Auroville then we must consider this: in January 1968, a city plan, commissioned by the Mother, was approved. Two weeks later She wrote the Charter.

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

Christoph Pohl grew up in Germany. He studied media technology engineering and worked in video and film post production in Hamburg and Berlin before moving to Auroville in 2008.