..."But the hour is often terrible, of fire and whirlwind and the tempest, a threading of the winepress of the feed of God..." says Sri Aurobindo on the Hour of God which Loretta quote in our interview or reflections on recent cyclone Thane raging over Auroville and nearby villages. And as she says that when something happens that hurts you, and it hurts you much, you stop and ask, although the Hour of God is not physical thing but it does crush down something inside of us. The bottom line is LOVE, which made and manifest the Universe. Read more

On Sunday 22nd of January at 6pm at Pitanga The French Pavilion and CIRHU present An exceptional concert of Marc Vella who is a pianist, composer, writer and poet, and has been elected «Peace Artist» by UNESCO and obtained the 1st price for composition in Rome in 1999. Also on Saturday at 4.30 pm at Savitri Bhavan Jyoti Khare will inaugurate PRESENCE - an exhibition (paintings and collages) using pieces of dresses used by the Mother. The same day at 5.30 pm Udavi School invites us to a ODISSI DANCE Festival Read more

About EWB (Engineers Without Borders) we talked with Jenny and Joss, while the group of EWB members is visiting India, and Auroville. In Australia itself there are 4000 members, students, young graduates and professional, striving for a change, pushing humanitarian engineering, which is more considerate, more social and cultural oriented, and most of all more sustainable. Within the "Challenge" team of EWB members is working on practical solution of toilets, sanitation and alternative energy approaches at Devikulam Village. Read more

After a week of cyclone Jorge from Windarra Farm is also of those who cherish what the natural calamity brought out of us as human beings. As he mentions in between that the spirit of Auroville became alive. There is love and care amongst people giving to whoever might need it, and he feels proud to be here at this time. For Windarra, which is and organic farm, will also take few months to bring short term crops, and a year, years to bring back fruit trees. They estimate that 90% of cashew trees in the area are either uprooted or affected. Read more

The Working Committee member Daniel talks about the rehabilitation work happening in Auroville after the Thane cyclone. The most urgent matter is the restoring of the electricity since Auroville depends 100% on water pumped by the borewells. The electrical distribution lines are totally destroyed. About 150 electrical poles are broken and only 50 of them are available. It is estimated that the recovery of electrical power in all the different communities will take around one month. The next week most probably the school will open. Read more

In today's news we feature short interview with John from help desk for cyclone at Town Hall .... And Andrea spoke with visiting guest artist Carrie Dashow about her work and presentation she will held on Friday 6th of January at 5pm at Multi Media Center in Town Hall....Rosine Debode, a Belgian national, who was one of the early Aurovilians, passed away peacefully in Auroville in the early morning of January 4, 2012. She made a unique and generous contribution to Auroville with her life. Thank you Rosine for all your love and support. . Read more

Recently built zen house of Sabine and Philippe, residents of Repos community is now roofless, water tank broken, what used to be beautiful blooming fence by buganvilla, is now piece of uprooted shrubs...For Sabine and Philippe Repos is home for more than decade, and both actively participate in community life in Repos, as well in community in whole. Since they were well aware, and realistic of present treat of cyclone Thane on Thursday night, they evacuated themselves overnight, and also informed others and guests about situation. What now? Read more

No doubt that last week cyclone Thane raging trough our town and neighboring villages caused lots of damages, and no doubt the worst it was for the beach communities - Repos, Waves, Samarpanam, Gokulam, Symplicity, Quiet, Sri Ma, Eternity. The hardest it was for them not only because they are situated on the beach, where huge waves were crushing the whole coastline in those 12 hours of cyclone, but because beach erosion already affected them seriously last few years. We spoke with Bagha and Vasu about cyclone, and about issues around erosion. Read more

The Auroville community have joint together to work in the cleaning up of public spaces after the stroke of the Thane Cyclone. In Isai Ambalam School kids have been working with teachers and parents to improve roads and general conditions of gardens and buildings. The Volunteer Desk, located in the reception of the Town Hall, is offering the possibility to guests and Aurovilians to work together reverting the impacts left by the cyclone. The schools in Auroville are supposed to open on Monday the 9th of January. Read more

You can hear interviews and soundscapes from sadhana forest, recorded 2nd of january 2012, a couple of days after cyclone Thane hit the community. Aviram, founder of Sadhana forest, speaks about his experience and the consequences for his home. Also some of the volunteers active at Sadhana share their feelings about the storm passing by and what needs to be done now. Although the conditions are harsh, all the volunteers keep their spirits high. Sadhana forest, a forest in the making, will recover and keep on growing... Read more

Dear friends, sorry for the 3 days long silence but Auroville has no power and very unstable telephone & Internet connections since the 30th. We switched off all systems to protect the equipment. From Monday we'll cover extensively the Thane Cyclone's effects in the region. Auroville suffered damages but not people died or get injured. All the working groups are working hard to recover the basic infrastructures. Please read the READ MORE section for an official announcement. In the audio file OM by Nadaka as well wishing for the new year. Read more

Last Friday Sadhana Forest celebrated its 8th birthday with many activities and workshops through the day. Amongst other activities, Aviram, the founder of Sadhana Forest presented to the community of Sadhana Forest, their vision and details on all their projects. Sadhana stands for : veganism as food choice, gift economy, inclusiveness to all and technical sustainable living. One of the proiects is Forest Ambassadors, which is a global network for individuals who are inspired to act on local environmental and social issues. Read more

In an interesting interview with Kalvi and Kathy with the background of open house at Thamari community centre at Edayanchavadi we can hear inspiring story about the center, which it became very important for the village children. "Flowering of potential for all" is their red thread, and center is trying to be a safe space for children of all ages last seven years. For the open house children prepared many things, from exhibition of their work trough the year, magic show, and launching of a bilingual book "Blooming Thamarai" . Read more

Puducherry Municipal Services Private Limited’s Chief Operating officer Lt. Col. C. P. Prem Vas and Public Relations officer Mr. Sridhar made a presentation at Town Hall about waste management. At the southern border of Auroville, a huge dump site effects the life of the residents of Auroville and nearby villages. The open field dump pollutes the air, due to the low grade combustion of the waste. This dangerous practice produces many air Pollutants such as dioxin, a chemical product extremely dangerous to humans and animals. Download the pdfRead more

Tonight we can see two interesting theater plays – at 7pm at Visitor Centre The Mankeys presents form Monkeymotion to Mokemotion, and 8pm at Sri Aurobindo Auditorium in Pavilion of Indian Culture the Morodokmai Theater Troupe from Thailand will put on the stage Chitra by Rabindranath Tagore. Tomorrow at 5pm at Creativity Hall of Light L'Avenir d'Auroville will share with us Residential Zone Presentation, and on Friday Sadhana Forest will celebrate its 8th birthday with an all-day festival of workshops and live performances! Free bus rides. Read more

Although connections with Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building, Construction and City development(EiABC) were established years before the Auroville International meeting in Addis Ababa this October, the interest from the side of the students was no lesser - opposite, they've followed carefully all the presentations ( in this recording we can hear Margarita , Joss and Shivaya ones) and actively participated in interactions afterward. Both - Melake Selam and Brook Teklehaimanot, who were in Auroville already, shared their knowledge Read more

On 2nd and 3rd of December our town will be richer for a Shakespeare play The Tempest, put onstage by English volunteer Hazel, by Aikiyam School children. Children and the whole school are working with all their enthusiasm to rehearse and put the play onstage on time. As Hazel told us, they were working on it even before she came to Auroville, and now they work intensively on the correct English, correct intonation, tone, posing.. For them this is also part of an English class project, and for Hazel to work with this children is a special joy.

Beside that Vani organized beautiful display of panels on Auroville and aspect of life in it, was actively involved in organization of the logistic of Auroville International meeting in Addis Abbaba in Ethiopia in the last week of December in 2011, she also presented small segment of our care for health - a dental practice in Auroville for its bioregion. As she told us it doesn't take so much of a skill for one to do the prevention work and scaling as the basic dental work in the village in the area of dental hygiene, especially with children

For sister Sandrine and bredren Alex moving to Ethiopia was a matter of faith. For one to repatriate have to emancipate oneself from the mental slavery, from lust and vanity, ... Holly Mount Zion is the reality - Ethiopia, and Shashamene the spot given from his majesty Haile Selasie to expatriots as a token of appreciation. Although it might look at the first glance that community is divided - still no matter what is their mansion, they're singing the same song, they're all rastafari and they all believe in the Dvinity of negus Haile Selasie. Read more

Some positivity by willingness to listen to each other was Renu good news on L'AVenir d'Auroville in our interaction. Team agreed to meet once a week to share and discuss on particular topic, prioritise them and stay flexible in the needs if they arise. Exciting news we heard was also the one on master plans - by December they hope to have a bio regional master plan, which will fuse with the green belt master plan, and will be based on conservation of water for the general bio region.; and my March 2010 five years plan should be completed.

With sparkling eyes and always present smile on her face Rebecca is one of very interesting long term guest we can see around for almost a year now. Her curiosity and a quest to finish her phd thesis on community and belonging brought her to Auroville. And since the method of research is ethnography in anthropology with participant observation she involved herself in few projects. In one she works for SAVI , interviewing units holders in order to design web page which will bring more useful informations to potential volunteers.

Pashi made a presentation on possiblilities of growing Bamboo grass using organic fertilizers in Auroville wastelands and shared the experience of cultivating bamboo in different soil and water conditions. He also spoke about biomass being a sustainable source of reliable energy and how bamboo and woody material can be used effectively for generation of energy. He elaborated on the ecological and economic advantages of cloning and culturing Bamboo as against Casuarina which takes far more space and is less productive.

Since 2009 world is celebrating, in order to raise awareness of versatile and sustainable aspects of bamboo, World Bamboo Day. Auroville celebrated it with numerous events, workshops. What had started as bamboo dinner at Visitors Centre past Saturday, was followed by unique fashion show made by Kiran and Lea out of bamboo fabric. This year's theme Flower Power was truly in joyful and fresh approach in bright colors and one of the kind cuts, all in loving mood. Bamboo Band and Yemadas kept the thread of joy over life in their performance. Read more

In addition to their regular service, the L'avenir team will be available once a month to community members. The first was yesterday on Wednesday, September 14th, at the L'avenir office, Town Hall. And here's and excerpt of interview with Dorle and Sauro on that . Auroville Bamboo Research Centre will be planting seedlings of bamboo tomorrow at 7am on the grounds of Centre, and In the afternoon at 5pm in Conference Room at Town Hall few speakers will talk about bamboo - its usage, significance in Auroville and bioregion. Read more

Last Saturday's Open House at Auroville Bamboo Research Centre thre was a chance to see on display almost everything about bamboo. With its versatile qualities, practical and artistic aspects, bamboo does inspire almost anybody who makes contact with it. In comparison with last year the progress at Bamboo Research Centre is clearly visible. The whole area is vibrant with new and rejuvenating energies, and smiling faces are all around. We talked shortly with Balu and Walter about the World Bamboo Day celebrations and about the Centre. Read more

In an interview with Dr. Peter Choate, social worker from Canada specializing in child protection, he elucidates on child abuse and the simple yet strongest tool to combat the problem, which is conversation versus secrecy around this topic. This year Dr. Choate and his wife are visiting Auroville for the 4th time, working closely with Child Protection Service and Village Action and an organization in Chennai. Peter is called not only to work for the good of children through education, but also towards the ideals of Auroville.

We are more or less aware - depends on the level of health problem we got due to the location, that Karuvadikuppam dump site affect Auroville and the nearby villages. Pondicherry Municipality use this landfill to dump unsegregated urban waste, where methane formed by anaerobic decomposition of organic matter bursts into spontaneous combustion and sets aflame the inorganic waste. When plastic is melted down, its chemical structure changes and carcinogenic gases are released. What can we do to stop the Municipality to stop burning the waste? Read more

The Auroville Sustainable Agriculture Plan Steering Group prepared on Thursday 11th of August an interesting, and vital to us all presentation on the Five Years Plan. It should secure sustainable grown produce by increase of our own production, which can be done only by the help of the community, by using land more efficiently, by a higher involvement of people in agriculture and by the change of the food habits. Not just the Farm Group but each key sector of the community needs to think of how to be sustainable, to increase awareness.

In this talk the landscape architects Achva and David Stein from New York that were invited by the Auroville planning section L'Avenir to help to prepare a plan for the development of the Green Belt are presenting some of their works to explain their approaches to landscape planning. They have been involved in large scale projects all over the world including India, have won many awards with their work and have now spend more than a month in Auroville to study the local situation. Read more