AuroAnnam Farm is among Auroville's oldest parcels of land. Most recently it was a demonstration site for organic cashews. Mawite has been caring for AuroAnnam and putting energy into making it a lively yet peaceful green entryway into Auroville. There is a question whether Auroville will keep the land or exchange it, making future plans for the place somewhat tenuous. Hear Mawite explain the situation at AuroAnnam on Earth Day weekend - first with a walk around the land and chant led by Kaya, then a presentation back at the Farmers' Cafe. Read more

Surrounding the Youth Centre and north of Town Hall is Bliss Forest, home to porcupines and many birds. Early on Sunday morning we were led by the Bliss steward Dominik on a walk through the forest. The area faces its own share of road controversies as Aurovilians work out how best to continue building the city. Which should take precedent of the galaxy plan, Master Plan, or existing features is a perennial question. As we walked we learned a bit about the biodiversity of the place, and efforts to clear the wood brought down by Cyclone Thane. Read more

Many of the plants growing naturally all around us have healing properties. As part of the Earth Day program of events we were invited to Sapney Farm to learn about using medicinal plants. Listen to Elumalai describe the properties of plants from brahmi to hibiscus. What natural preparations can we use for fever, wounds or insect bites? How can we plan and care for an herbal garden? Then hear Sara, long-term volunteer working on her Permaculture diploma, describe some of the Permaculture principles being practiced at Sapney Farm. Read more

This morning at Conference Room in Town Hall we had a chance to listen to some interesting short talks with its common thread on ecology awareness. The opening session was with Cesare who shared with us some points of Open Source Hardware in relation to the local community or DIY ( Do It Yourself). Followe by Snehal talking on Kitchen Gardens or why we should grow food everywhere. Deoyani Sarkhot emphasized versatile usage of charcoal and which benefits it can bring to the soil. First part was concluded with Kathy on health and environment. Read more

Auroville’s co-existence within a rapidly growing urban-rural continuum emphasizes on an urgent need to reflect upon the development patterns within the larger bio-region. Auroville’s pro-active role in the development in the region appears as the need of the hour to not only secure land use but to also induce sustainable growth patterns within the bio region. TDC initiated a platform for an interactive brainstorming session for Aurovilians actively involved in the region with our guest advisor Prof. K.T Ravindran from Delhi. Read more

Life Education Center (LEC) is an Auroville outreach school, providing vocational training and counseling to empower semi-educated girls from the nearby villages since 1991. In this interview, the students and some LEC teachers share personal reflections and experiences by each focusing on one of the qualities in the Mother's symbol. Paralleled in a collective visual art piece, there is also a sample of the daily chanting at LEC at the end of the session. The following are the individual names and the qualities/aspects which they explored: Read more

Over the past 7 years Aurovillians have been having problems with the smoke and fumes coming from the Karuvadikuppam dump site located just 3 km outside Auroville. None of the waste has been segregated which make the management extremely difficult. In order to take up this issue with the local government Renu and Bindu has taken action by asking Igor to send a lab technician to take soil and water samples for testing. The place stinks for miles around making the life in some villages and Auroville's communities unbearable. Read more

This morning Auroville Cyclone Response Team (AVCRT) and the secretary of Auroville Foundation Mr. Balabaskar inaugurated the new solar plant at the Town Hall with its capacity of 10KW. The gathering was also an occasion to display all the vehicles that were bought by found given by Government of India for the relief of cyclone Thane damages. Following is the short interview with Mr. Balabaskar, Divia and Ramesh, followed by sound scape of presentation of one of the vehicles put on display outside of Town Hall with its capacity to shred twigs. Read more

Eco - music festival Lively Up Your Earth is due next year in the beginning of February. In comparison to last two years, Krishna and Andrea have decided to start with the organizational work way before than last years. In conversation with them we can hear how they see it, what and who is needed in order to provide such a pleasant, yet educational, and more than anything else fun event for all of us with emphasis on music and organic - permaculture farming. What can we expect this year?... maybe YOU can be and active part of it 

 

AurovilleRadio was lucky to catch a phone interview with Kenny Ausubel, the founder of Bioneers, an organization pushing forward with many Auroville-like principles. Bioneers describes "an emerging culture of social and scientific innovators who are mimicking nature’s operating instructions to serve human ends while enriching the web of life. We take a ‘solve-the-whole-problem’ approach: Taking care of nature means taking care of people - and taking care of people means taking care of nature. It's part of our mission.” Read more

For almost a decade, but surely with acceleration in last year or two, Auroville beach community Repos has been "eaten" away by the severe beach erosion. Bhaga shares with us some thoughts on it... Until recently no speciific action was taken from the official Auroville regarding the problem. Cyclone Relief Team instructed by Working Committee has started to help the community with clean up. This morning along with Satprem and volunteers they have continued with reinforcing the foundations of the house. Read more

With 350,000,000 menstruating women in India: what are we going to do with the waste from the newly-introduced, "modern" menstruation products? Yes, 350 million is a big number. With keen foresight, Kathy has stepped up to the plate with a team of women to try to close the bin on this massive upcoming waste production. Auroville Radio sat down with Kathy on a busy Saturday morning in Cafe Le Morgan to discuss these very current social issues and talk about opportunities for the future. Please visit ecofemme.org to find out more! Read more

Listen in to interviews with Punnuswami (Auroville Electrical Service), Srinivasamurthy (Auroville Foundation) and Daniel (the Working Committee) regarding the Cyclone Alert. After Auroville's experience with cyclone Thane, less than one year ago, it seems the residents of Auroville are more conscious and prepared for wind and rain disrupting normal life. Here is a link to the website with cyclone updates: www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dynamic/cwind.pdf Read more

Golden Water is a water purification project funded by Tom and Janet from Canada. It was founded by Nikadas and his wife Ranana about two years ago to address the restricted access to clean drinking water in Edyanchavadi village. With its sixty-thousand liter tank, Golden Water provides fresh, free drinking water for local children and families and water for a small fee to the other community locals. This tuesday they had a ceremony to celebrate with children from the New Colors evening school. Read more

Here Aromar Revi, talks about the future of renewable energy and highlights the fact that our civilization lives in the ignorance of permanence. He refers to the rise and fall of various civilizations that inhabited the Indian sub-continent and sees this as a natural cycle which will also overcome our current civilization. To download the presentation, click here. Director, Indian Institute of Human Settlement: www.iihs.co.in/about/promoters-group/aromar-revi/ Read more

Alan facilitated a general discussion with speakers and participants raising the questions if all the technological solutions may be enough to actually counterbalance the current rate of destruction of our eco system or if they are actually misleading us. The conclusion was that technologies and even lifestyle adjustments may not be enough but a radical shift in consciousness is the need of the time. Read more

In this presentation the participants of the Energy Positive Habitats workshops shared in the plenum what they had learned, practiced and experienced during the four parallel workshops: 1. Emerging Energy Policies, 2. Building Energy Auditing and Management , 3. Energy Efficient Building Design, 4. Decentralized Solar & Wind Installations. Each participant felt this was a massive learning experience. Read more

Here we gathered the speakers together to have a one to one interview session with them, and to find out about their feedback on a seminar like this one and also about their experience in Auroville. Alan interviewed Herbert, Brahmanand and Aromar Revi where amongst various thoughts they also mutually felt that Auroville and its green practices need to scale up and to reach the world outside as well. Read more

Here Tanmay Tathagat talks about the practical ways of designing buildings to minimise the use of embodied energy and to maximise energy savings. The affluent countries have to cut down on their resource use, while the developing countries must aspire for a better quality of life but without taking the same wasteful resource-intensive path taken by the affluent nations. To download the presentation click here. Principal, Edsglobal. www.agp.aurovilleconsulting.com/speakers Read more

Building Energy. Auditing & Management. Here Dr. Brahmanand Mohanty tells us how to move towards far more efficient use of energy in habitats. 4 areas to implement changes: individual lifestyles, architectural design and planning, use of energy efficient appliances, implementation of renewable energy systems. He shows us how it is possible for us to have comfort for better. To download the presentation click here. - Visiting Faculty, Asian Institute of Technology. www.agp.aurovilleconsulting.com/speakers

Energy efficiency in the building sector. Globally buildings account for 40% of the energy use. The total energy use in buildings is growing rapidly owing to economic development, increasing urbanization and improved lifestyles. In this talk Mili Majumdar introduces some energy efficient strategies and practices for urban settlements and buildings that are being implemented in India. To download the presentation click here. - Director, Sustainable Habitat, TERI www.agp.aurovilleconsulting.com/speakers

Herbert Girardet explores if large, modern cities can be viable and resilient homes for humanity. He describes the historical urban transformation from agropolis (an economic system that draws most of its resources from immediate bioregions) to petropolis (eco-predator which relies on petrol-based fuel and highly wasteful resource management). He shares that the future lies in ecopolis and regenerative cities. To download the presentation click here. Co-Founder, World Future Council - www.agp.aurovilleconsulting.com/speakers Read more

Inspired after very positive responses form the community, and especially children, after Liter Free Auroville in 2010, which had engage practically the whole community to all day long event aiming toward raising awareness on waste treatment in Auroville, new activity WasteLess launched on Saturday Garbology 101. New curriculum as a result of several months long interactive work of WasteLess team - Chandrah, Mari, Ribhu and Vimal with students and teachers of three schools comes as an educational box with guide book and many interactive tools Read more

Last Sunday Mohanam Cultural Centre at Sanjeevi Nagar, on the outskirt of Auroville celebrated 11th anniversary of its existence. Happy children, parents, guests gathered to celebrate the occasion with joy. Children prepared cultural program in a dance way, but we could see pieces of their work and activities exhibited throughout the Centre. No doubt that Mohanam grown over the past years, and keeps striving for better. As such it is a bridge between local villages and Auroville trough cultural exchanges, fosters development and understanding. Read more

Rio +20 from 20th to 26th of June in Rio de Janerio in Brasil it will be follow up of starting summit of twenty years ago. Filip, who spent most of his life in Auroville, is passionate about forest, and sustainable projects, actively involved in Tree House Community... no doubt that summit is very attractive to him, because over 190 countries will participate on Rio +20 with their head leaders, ready to sign some serious commitment in behalf of their governments. Filip wants to document the event, and will try to build a special tree house.

Everyone has time to donate their lives to a worthy cause. Thinking about the priority of the physical human life, just after the air there's water. Thinking only about who needs water to grow up the edible plants we use to eat everyday, it's easy to connect all together in this problem: Auroville water is always less clean and more difficult to store, even in the aquifer. So do we care about it? Nathalie (in the english interview), is one who does care, and for the first time spoke at a meeting: the one of Water Read more

Water for Auroville, an urgent issue! by Gilles Boulicot was at Cinema Paradiso. It emerged that there is more than one way to solve the problem of scarcity of water in the Auroville land and around it. To face this problem it is important to use multi-sourcing. There are many ways to improve today’s situation. First of all the relationship with neighbouring towns is a necessity for the hydrogeological environment. There is only one for the entire region. Today at 3 pm in Citadine is a meeting to form a group of people to manage about it. Read more

Since as far back as 2005, a group of Aurovillians have taken up an environmental activist campaign with the Pondicherry garbage control. The Pondicherry dump, located just 3 km outside of Auroville, is a smouldering wasteland where nearly 350 tons of garbage are dumped each day. The dump, which often catches fire because of the lack of waste sorting, causes a thick, grey cloud of toxic smoke. For Auroville, this low combustion incineration causes especially serious health and environmental issues because of its proximity to the dump site. Read more

The anti-waste organization from Auroville has been promoting responsible waste management for two years in Periyamudaliarchavadi (PMC), one of the small villages around Auroville. Last March 3rd, Niranjan Kumar and Ribhu Vohra held an exhibition for the local children, displaying the causes and effects of pollution through pictures and posters. Through this, they hope that the kids start to encourage their parents to treat waste more carefully. EcoPro also tries to increase awareness by painting walls with anti-litter messages. Read more

In recent years, there has much research and experimentation in the field of wind energy, and the production of wind turbines has become one of the leading examples of renewable energy. Jorge, who runs an initiative at Windarra Farm focused on the production of homemade wind turbines, took some time to speak about his own goals and the awareness of wind turbine benefits. His program, centered in education, brings volunteers and students to the farm to learn how to build their own turbines. Read more