Town Hall

The popular Auroville Bakery opened a new branch at the Town Hall on July 11. It comprises a café as well as a bakery outlet where people can purchase their favourite bakery goodies as well as pick up bread and other bakery orders.

The January 2025 issue of Auroville Today focused on the aftermath of Cyclone Fengal, which breached the Lego block dam separating sections 1 and 2 of the Matrimandir Lake.

In the previous issue of Auroville Today we published the major considerations and decisions of the Governing Board as reported in the minutes of its 67th Governing Board meeting held in Auroville on 31 May 2024.

The Auroville Visitors Centre is Auroville’s reception and information disseminating centre for the often thousands of tourists and visitors coming to Auroville daily.

In response to a Right to Information request of 7 December, 2024 the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education has sent the applicant on 3 January the minutes of the 67th Governing Board meeting held in Auroville on 31 May, 2024.

April 2024. Trucks are driving up and down, day and night, to transport earth dug up from the second section temporary hillock opposite the Town Hall.

In its 63rd meeting the GB approved the project proposal submitted by the EdCIL (India) Limited for the construction of 1,000-bed student hostel in two phases at Auroville.

As befits chroniclers of our real lives, the organisers of the 8thAuroville Film Festival acknowledged in their address on the essence of the festival, the unique times Auroville is experiencing: ‘In the midst of the challenges we currently face, the Auroville Film Festival 2024 stands not as a conventional celebration but as a contemplative and reflective gathering.

In what one resident described as a ‘massacre’, an elegant bronze statue located behind the Media Centre at the Town Hall was unaccountably painted blue recently.

Peter reflects on many months of keeping the council office in the Town Hall available for the Auroville Council.

This interview with Anupama Kundoo is the third article in the series ‘city perspectives’. Anupama Kundoo graduated from Sir J.J. College of Architecture, Mumbai in 1989 and received her doctoral degree from TU Berlin in 2008.

On May 18th, the Inspector of the Auroville Police Station along with an officer of the Crime Branch Crime Investigation Department entered Auroville's Town Hall building at the request of the AVFO demanding the keys to the Working Committee office, to be given to Working Committee recognized by the AVFO.

One Saturday morning in November 2017, a bunch of Auroville youth hanging out in the Solar Kitchen parking lot had the ‘wild idea’ to clean-up some of the ever-increasing amounts of rubbish in Auroville.

Between 20th January and 1st March, Paulette put on a photographic exhibition at the Town Hall on the theme of ‘Milano’s futuristic architecture: regeneration of the Porta Nuova district’.

Imagine being a young person, discovering, participating, and actively dedicated to the development of Auroville. Imagine living in a group of twelve, all volunteering in the community: people from different parts of the world, with different cultural backgrounds, but with a common intention to experience and contribute to Auroville.

Paulette has been a particularly energetic contributor to the 50th anniversary celebrations. She has put up two photographic exhibitions and released a book.

The Korean Pavilion Group is amongst the most active pavilion groups in Auroville. Hye Jeong, who has been living in Auroville since 2002, explains what is being done and why.

On the 3rd of March this year, Varuna presented their plans for a solar energy plant in a General Meeting (GM). Auroville Today reports on the meeting and looks at the wider issue of solar power in Auroville.

Now the Town Hall has a circle garden. It was started by Krishna from Solitude Farm around six months ago. “Despite Auroville being home to many inspiring and different experiments, the community still by and large does not realize that the essence of our existence lies in our relation to food,” he says.

In 1992 Auroville’s renewable energy unit, AuroRE, began providing renewable energy applications and solutions within Auroville and to rural and urban India.

Auroville Radio celebrated its 11th anniversary on December 5th this year. Despite their busy schedule in the months of November and December, and having to help set up Peridar Kaala Vaanoli (‘Radio in the Time of Extreme Calamity’ in Tamil), a temporary emergency FM radio station for the flood-hit Cuddalore, Andrea and Renu share their stories from Auroville Radio.

On December 12th 2015, about 20 youth gathered in the Town Hall in answer to an invitation that said, “Ever wondered what’s happening in the Town Hall?

Have you walked behind the Town Hall lately? You might be surprised by what you see. Nestled in that dense urban area, surrounded on all sides by buildings, you can find young banana plants, bountiful bougainvillea, creepers climbing up the walls of Citadines, a robust vegetable garden, and a drip irrigation system supplying water to young fruit trees.

In January, Paulette mounted an exhibition of old photos, which she had painstakingly restored, in the Town Hall. Most of the photographers are unknown.