AV group

Aurovilians Ivar Jenten and Brigitte Vink, both originally from the Netherlands, have been working with village children for many years. In June 2021 they founded Isai Ragam under Auroville’s Auromitra Trust.

Lakshay Dharan shifted to Auroville in 2015 and became an Auroville resident in Feb 2018. Since then, he has been active in art, communication, strategy, and organisational work.

Maël Vidal was born and grew up in Auroville before going to France to pursue higher studies, where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social anthropology.

The German Government set up the Weltwärts programme to allow young Germans to volunteer in a different country for 6-18 months in areas like education, health, environment, culture and human rights, in order to broaden their minds and strengthen international understanding.

Chali reflects on the fractures within Auroville and on the possibilities of restoration.

On 13 August, the managers of Annapurna Farm received an email signed by three working groups constituted by the Governing Board – the Funds and Assets Management Committee, L’Avenir d’Auroville (Auroville’s Town Development Council) and the Farm Service – stating: “It has been decided to allocate 100 acres of Auroville land at Annapurna for the IIT [Indian Institute of Technology, eds.]

On 14 August Dr. Karan Singh, who has been Chairman of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation for more than 20 years, briefly visited Auroville.

In October 2024 we interviewed Dan Capdeville who launched the “Seeking Our Inner Being” project in January of that year. Now, one and a half years later, he has decided to formally close it down.

In 2018, Amrit published ‘Children of Change’, a memoir recounting his early life and the difficult years in Auroville when he and others chose not to take sides in the bitter conflict between the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) and the then-dominant Auroville collective.

Heartweaving is quietly bringing together Aurovilians with different perspectives to manifest possible ways forward through sustained inner work.

Maatram is a mental-health support centre in Auroville staffed by professionally trained psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, and counsellors who work collaboratively to offer compassionate, person-centred care.

In 1989, more than three decades ago, a retired British police sergeant and school welfare officer visited Auroville. Having recently lost his wife, Roy Wicks was in search of new meaning and purpose.

Once upon a time a very long time ago, deep in the woods at the bottom of a mountain — Mother’s Mountain, mata-giri—a six-page newsletter called Collaboration came into being.

On 17 April, long-term Aurovilian Frederick Schulze Buxloh was informed that his application for visa extension had been denied. The decision sparked widespread concern, leading to a petition addressed to Indian authorities that garnered over 4000 signatures.

Manya Sekar, who came to Auroville in her teens, will soon start pursuing her higher education at Oberlin College in the USA. Here she talks about her experience in Auroville.

“Auroville will be a place of unending education”, says its Charter. The entirety of Auroville is envisioned by The Mother as an evolving educational campus encompassing all facets of life.

It all started in September 1998. Jean-François and I were at home when a group of teenagers, familiar faces from the Auroville schools, walked in with a quiet determination.

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.

A year ago, architect David Nightingale talked about how Spiral Dynamics could provide one way of understanding the present situation in Auroville.

In May 2024, the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation approved the creation of the Auroville Physical Education Board (APEB), and allocated an in-principle budget of ₹2 crores (approx.

As I was looking through the minutes of the last Governing Board meeting regarding proposed changes to the Auroville Foundation Act, I recalled that when the Act was originally being prepared, there were already two different tendencies.

On 17 March 2025, the Supreme Court of India delivered two judgements. One was on the appeal of the Auroville Foundation against the verdict of the National Green Tribunal passed in April 2022; the other on the appeal of the Auroville Foundation against the judgement of the Madras High Court of March 2024 regarding the Auroville Town Development Council.

Friederike Mühlhans has a long experience of working for Auroville International (AVI). Since 1997 she has been a board member of AVI Germany and since 2003 she has been Secretary of the AVI Board, with a four-year break when she served as Chairperson.

Claude and Abha have been living in Auroville since 1974 and 1978 respectively. For the last 45 years, Abha has been running the handicraft unit Shradhanjali while Claude has become a scholar who has authored several books and articles on Tibet, China, India and on Indo-French relations.

Abishek, a youth from Annai Nagar village, recently spent 18 months volunteering in Germany, as part of the Weltwärtsprogramme.

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

If the self-help genre had a naughty cousin who snuck a whoopee cushion under the seat of life’s seriousness, The Joy of Living Lightly by Fif Fernandes would be it.

“In this as in all great human aspirations and endeavours, an a priori declaration of impossibility is a sign of ignorance and weakness. For by the doing the difficulty will be solved.”

Last December, there was a photographic exhibition in the Tibetan Pavilion which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the second caravan in Auroville.

On November 25, meteorologists of the India Meteorological Department observed a deep depression forming in the Bay of Bengal. Their initial forecast was that the depression would weaken and that a cyclone would not form, as the depression was moving at the unusually slow speed of 3 kmph, far below the typical cyclone speed of 10-12 kmph.

Serena, an Aurovilian and filmmaker, recounts her journey with the nuns of the Buddhist Karsha Monastery in Ladakh, documenting their inspiring story and the powerful exchange that unfolded.

Prashant Hedao was the Regional Planning Coordinator of L’Avenir d’Auroville, Auroville’s Town Planning Department, from 2007-2010. In those years he worked closely together with then Governing Board member Dr BV Doshi on the Auroville Master Plan.

Try to imagine a life without water. Just think of your morning routine: you drink water from your filter or tap, you flush your toilet, take a shower and brush your teeth.