Maroma

Auroville has a striking new art gallery – Maji. Located in the compound of Maroma, which is sponsoring the initiative, the first exhibition, ‘Petals’, opened in February 2025 and featured artists from the project’s first ceramics residency.

Antonello comes from Northern Italy and moved to Auroville in 2014, where he now lives with his partner and children. He runs ‘Gastronomica’, an Italian take away gourmet store - sometimes affectionately referred to as the Italian Pavilion - that has gained popularity within and outside of Auroville, thanks to its handmade pasta, Italian takeaway dishes, and imported Italian culinary products.

On March 26th, the Auroville Press in Aspiration community celebrated its 40th anniversary. Claude Arpi, Christine Devin, Luisa Meneghetti and Jayalakshmi look back at a challenging past and forward to an uncertain future.

Long-term Aurovilian Hervé Millet left his body on August 19th at Marika Home at the age of 75, due to complications of cancer which he had been battling since several years.

In the late afternoon of April 25th, Roma Hira peacefully left her body at her home in Dana due to renal failure. She would have turned 73 in September this year.

Auroville’s grocery outlets have begun to be stocked with an all-new collection of hemp-based products. Hempseed oil, hemp flour, and hemp hearts have hit the shelves thanks to Hemplanet, an Auroville unit that aims to promote the use of a wide array of hemp derivatives and eventually begin hemp cultivation in Auroville.

Many residents have come to know Sathish Arumugam through his work with the Residents Assembly Service (RAS) and his recent chairing of General Meetings.

Recently, Auroville Today brought together some farmers, planners and those involved in managing community finances to look at the present situation of farming in Auroville and to examine options for the future.

Mother gave broad and clear directives that form the basis of Auroville’s socio-economic organization and vision: a communal economy with no private property and no exchange of money between community members, each of whom would contribute to the collective in one of three ways – work, kind, or money – and whose basic needs, would, in turn, be provided for by the community.

“After we presented in October 2013 our book Economics for People and Earth – The Auroville Case 1968-2008, we left Auroville with a modest hope that its economy would improve.

On 20th November, The Hindu newspaper reported that an initiative had been launched to make Puducherry and Auroville the world’s first ‘Fair Trade Twin Towns’.