On Friday workshop at conference Room in Town Hall, participants put on the table the fact that Auroville Township, Viluppuram, Cuddalore districts of Tamil Nadu and the districts of Puducherry are very closely connected to each other through natural resources, climate, historical links, culture, religion, language, tourism, trade or business, population and transportation. This tightly knit connection calls for a Regional Plan that would benefit this region not just in the urban areas but also the adjoining rural areas. Read more

Announcing a 5 day Wind/Solar Hybrid Workshop. A presentation of Bharatnatyam Classical Dance is being offered with images of Ashwini's oil paintings. A salutogenetic communication group will be formed to discuss our total health. The University Of Human Unity Seminar will discuss Transhumanism. Can science heal humanity and conquer death? Will we create super-humans, or monsters? Sri Aurobindo and The Mother advocate Integral Yoga. Science advocates biomedicine and technology. Are we to become Spiritual Beings, or chip enhanced cyborgs? 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

When Mishko M'Ba greeted the audience with announcement of repertoir which would pay the tribute to Jaco Pastorious, famous bass player, brought many smiles on the faces. The whole gig was special treat for music lovers. Excellent musicians Mishko M'Ba on Bass, Matt Littlewood on saxophone, Suresh Bascara on drums and Karan Joseph on keyboards played known songs of Jaco Pastorious, Pat Metheny, Miles Davis and Joe Zawinul with technical perfection and with all their love for the music. Read more

To visiting Engineer Without Border Toine shortly explained what Auroville is, how it was originated and what it stands for, and drawing comparison said, that Auroville could be described also as a township without borders because of the connections and openness to the world. To Auroville are mostly drawn people with strong inner need for a change, dissatisfied with the world as it is today. Sri Aurobindo's idea of human as transitional being, in search for inner being , and the Mothers Charter are base of what experiment of Auroville might be

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

You can hear Prya of Buddha Garden (Auroville), and the village head of Morattandi about their reactions to the cyclone Thane. Although separated by only 5km, their way of coping with the storm is quite different. Morattandi, a village of 2000 inhabitants southwest of Auroville, is still struggling to get the electricity and water supply working again. Buddha Garden, a sustainable farm with solar panels, is up and running again. The village head of Morattandi is giving the interview while giving directions to workmen fixing an electricity pole.

Announcements featured in today's news: Christmas Fair: the 'Fair-de-Luck' on Dec. 17th at the Youth Center promised to be an afternoon of fun, games, music, shops, theater, food and art.Volunteers and contributions gratefully accepted. LRM (Land Resources Management) shares some challenges they face. B, for the Cooperatif Cosmique Aura, explains the Aura; a means of exchange vs. money, an energy exchange between those who live in Auroville. Auras can reflect and respect the values for which people have come to Auroville. Read more

On the second day of Auroville International conference in Addis Abbaba at the Red Cross Society Training Institute Carsten introduced to Ethiopian audience renewable energy systems in Auroville - what we have achieved in the past, and what we want to do in the future. Carsten is the leading person behind commercial unit AV Energy Products which provide untis and individuals, home and abroad with electronic components for solar systems. Vision is that we should become energy independent and self sufficient with all our energy requirements.

The community "Luminosity" has started with the wish to create "A temple for living" for its inhabitants. It consists of twelve small apartments, eight offices and big communal areas. David, one of the architects, is explaining the different aspects of the building like the new systems for waste water treatment and rain water harvest. The later will be able to provide enough water for all inhabitants of the building for the whole year. Please open the attached PDF-file in order to follow a series of 17 photos which are referred to in the talk Read more

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.

We've met Catherine the Green Group coordinator, and Martanda from the Forest Group to find out about life in the wild. These modern day foresters may live off the main grid but by producing their own energy they maintain an up-to-date lifestyle. In this podcast, they also talk about the beauty and the difficulties of maintaining and protecting the surrounding forest. Read more

Awakening the Dreamer Symposium is a tool developed by Pachamama Alliance to "awake" the participants, and to stimulate changes. Through participation in this program, people are encouraged to find their unique and powerful role as agents of change in creating a new future. Ethan, Bindu and Andrea shortly introduced Pachamam Alliance and its purpose, and what Awakening the Dreamer means to them - either to bring personal transformation, inspire people to the highest, lead to real changes in each one's life... Read more

Earth Week activities are in full swing. This morning in Conference Room in Town Hall was the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, and in the news we feature short interview with B about it. Tomorrow, on Earth Day, we will start with Earth Day Meditation at the Banyan Tree at 6 am , which will be followed by a collective clean up from 10 am to noon at Certitude. The wacky Earth day Parade will begin from the Youth Centre around 10 o'clock eventually to MahakaliPark where will be a pot-luck picnic around midday. At Visitor Centre at 7pm, after Earth Day vegan dinner, in the ceremony we'll see who's cooking the best food; and Academic Genius Brother will continue with the celebration. Read more

"The Divine plan is always there, all we have to do is open up, and take a next step...keep going..." told us B in an interview about his life, passion for waste management and other projects he's involved in. He came to Auroville in 1974, in its early beginning when town was is the survival mode; saw all the changes and transitions, and yet he feels extremely grateful that he was born at the right time to go trough this incredible adventure, as he named it. B is strongly convinced that Zero Waste Management is and achievable goal, because is something that people can understand. Up to today we managed to come to the point that we recycle 60 percents of the garbage, the rest 40 percents can be slowly chipped away by technology which is already available today.

On Saturday April 9th at 8 pm at the Visitors Centre Genius Incorporated Presents will make us laugh once more with Doppelganger - which they wrote is a scientific fiction of future possibilities with the advent of the dual consciousness. At Sri Aurobindo Auditorium, Bharat Nivas, Pavilion of Indian Culture on Saturday, April 9 at 8 pm Auroville Odissi Dance Group will give the performance Sri Krishna under the Kadamba Tree. Program is dedicated to Anu ben. A devotional dance originating in Odisa, Odissi highlights the beauty of curves and sculpted form in movement. At Widarra Farm Small Wind Turbine Design and Construction Workshop will be held from 9 - 12 April, and the second one in the last week of April to 1st of May. Read more

At the Solitude Farm in Auroville they made a music festival at the 29th of January 2011, called Lively up your Earth. Next to music there was a farm market with locally grown vegetables, books for sale and nice foods and drinks to eat. There was also a place for technology at the festival as several Aurovillian companies presented there products. One of these was Auroville Energy Products, selling Solar Energy products. Carsten tells us about the latest developments in the industry, about the latest improvements in technology, new ways of using energy more suficiant and the harm reduction to environment by producing these products. Read more

On Saturday the first of the kind eco-music festival "lively Up Your Earth” will happen at Solitude Farm with lots of good music, eco products from Auroville, workshops, theater plays, good ecological, and also raw food....throughout that day most of our taste buds should be satisfied. Otherwise city offers for the weekend, as usual, bunch of good movies at Cinema Paradiso in Town Hall, at Sri Aurobindo Auditorium in the Pavilion of Indian Culture, at Eco Film Club at Sadhana Forest, at Cine Club, and on Saturday at Visitor's Centre Video Room will be The Ramayana, a multi media presentation by Rajiv Chanchani. Read more

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, and under the theme of "Exploring Transformation", on 6th of February they will present to the world, innovations that have pioneered change in the past and those that are going to change the future. Amongst the speakers will be also Rauf Ali with his innovation of coconut presser. In the news we feature excerpt of interview with him. Tomorrow starts three days long seminar on how to develop sustainable management skills. Lively up your Earth - eco-musical festival it's happening on Saturday 29th of January at Solitude Farm. Read more

What is sustainability and what are communities. Those are the two main concepts a group of American students are going to study in Auroville in the next three months. Ethan Hursch Tauber, their mentor, is going to tell us more about this program of studies run by the NGO Living Routes in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts. Is Auroville a sustainable, eco-community? Let's find out what these terms really mean and how communities around the world are working towards these important values.

Saturday, 18th of September, World Bamboo Day – second part of the event at Visitor Center. After the delicious bamboo meal, talks were presented, and later we saw an unique fashion show, designed by Ok, Juin, Elena,Leah, and stitched by Lively Boutique tailoring section. Each designer also chose the outlook of the show itself, accompanied by lively music of Bamboo Band, which showed us later how bamboo can sound in music. The crowd, not as numerous as we're accustom to see on the events at Visitor Centre, was overwhelmed by the fresh approach of bamboo fabric used in fashion designs, as well on the way they were presented. Bamboo Band continue with the positive energies running high that day all the way from the morning by unique sounds and songs on exclusively bamboo instruments. Read more

18th of September has been marked as World Bamboo Day to bring the awareness to the planet of benefits of this amazing fast growing, sustainable grass. In Auroville we joined the celebration for the first time, and it started in the morning by planting around 100 plants of bamboo, which was followed by the Market at Solar Kitchen with display of many very beautiful bamboo products. The day ended by cultural event in the evening at Visitor Centre where the recordings of next piece are from, divided in two parts – in first one interesting talks by Pashi and Rolf, and demonstration of the bamboo cycle, in the second part you can listen to the amazing musical fashion show, Bamboo band and Jivan with friends. Read more

Today the three day seminar Auroville Green Practice is starting, and is meant for external participants to hear Auroville speakers on many different areas from forestry, water management, environmental issues, renewable energy...Our team is making all the best to publish as soon would be possible the major peaks of the seminar. Beside that we can see a movie in the evening in Cinema paradiso at Town Hall or at sunset we can listen to “Savitri” at Amphitheater at Matrimandir or we can join the ethnic chanting at Verite at 7pm with Ana, Tiago and friends

Jorge, by nationality Ecuadorian was drawn to Auroville by strong concept The Mother outlined, and as he laughing about, by the bread from Auroville Bakery. Amongst the broad array of activities he found lots of knowledge, and discovered interests that he didn't expect to, but for himself also realized that here is not only about contributing with work, but also internal, spiritual work is of the big importance, and of course in sharing the life, work, ideas with others, in the community. Beside working on the project for energy obtained from wind he also loves to teach tango, which is to him beautiful, and yet very simple dance in its core concept.

Satprem is the founder of the Earth Institute in Auroville and he will soon complete twenty one years in Auroville. He talks about his experience in Architecture and what is happening in the Earth centre, which has been a pioneer in creating sustainable,low cost and Eco-friendly building methods. Currently there is a workshop where architects from around the world have come together to participate and learn the methods. The participants talk about the workshop, about their time in Auroville and their plans to take what they have learned in Auroville back to their home countries. Read more

On Friday, the 26th of February Marti held a presentation about the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference at the MMC Auditorium in the Town Hall. She is a United Nations ECOSOC representative to Geneva. She joined a lot of closed sessions in Copenhagen, including presentations by leading world climatologists. The presentation was about the conference itself – how it was organized, the successes and failures, what they didn’t tell us, Plan B and the importance of spiritual transformation in our present context.

Gilles G, one of the founders of Solar Kitchen, talks about using the sun to produce steam to power a canteen to cater for up to 1,000 people. The system is still a hybrid, with diesel used to supplement sunshine, but previous diesel consumption has been cut by more than 30 percent. Robi from Aureka also talks about the production of wind pumps and their use in the green belt where the ban on electricity and diesel forces people to go for alternatives. And Gillian, coordinator of the waste collection service Ecoservice, speaks of attempts to avoid landfill, and to establish recycling – getting inspired help from local people who, for example, pointed out that things such as toothbrushes can be recycled. Read more

Collecting all the knowledge and expertise in Auroville around the topic of sustainablility and environment, that was the idea for the Green Portal, a new website, which just started. It lists experts and projects and it contains articles and multimedia.On Friday, the 30th of April it was presented to the public and Steffi interviewed Raghu, Martin and Vimal, three of the team members, who created this portal. Read more

Adhi, born in Edayanchavadi, works in the Botanical Garden, which aims to educate people about local plants and how they remain green even in the dry conditions. He has introduced the use of native species in Auroville rather than exotic plants which need lots of water and maintenance. Local children from 150 government schools in the region come to the botanical garden and are taught about the nursery and alternative energy, plant trees and are encouraged to take plants home to create gardens. There are also attempts to produce and conserve seeds of native Indian vegetables – original heritage seed independent of commercial genetically-modified seed.

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Today's news discusses a recent visit from the Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, and delves into Auroville's past and present contributions in this important sector. Also highlighted is one very important and crucial upcoming hour, 'The Earth Hour', taking place on Saturday from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, a time in which all lights are switched off in an effort to conserve energy and make a strong stand for our Planet. It is the hour in which the world unites in a powerful stand against global warming.

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