Located mostly in Tamil Nadu and partly in the neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry, Auroville exemplifies unity in diversity, with two-thirds of its 3,500 inhabitants hailing from 59 other nations, and from all age groups, backgrounds and cultures. Taken over by the Central government in 1980 through the Auroville Emergency Act, 1980, Auroville was granted autonomy under the Auroville Foundation Act passed eight years later under the UNESCO division of the Ministry of Education (later, Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD)). The architect of the Act was Dr Kireet Joshi, disciple of Sri Aurobindo and his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, as also the confidant and Education advisor to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.Gandhi had always been supportive of Auroville, having built a special bond with the Mother whom she met during her first visit to Pondicherry, and to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in 1955 with her father, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi had reportedly also asked for the Mother’s counsel on the war for Bangladesh in 1971. A year after the Mother’s passing in 1973, Gandhi again visited the Ashram and stayed a night there, describing Auroville as: “An exciting project for bringing about harmony among different cultures and for understanding the environmental needs of man’s spiritual growth.”Amidst the present crisis, the aggrieved residents of this first and only internationally endorsed ongoing experiment in human unity and transformation of consciousness have repeatedly petitioned the National Green Tribunal (NGT) of South Zone, based in Chennai, and have been rewarded, though fitfully, with a series of short-term stays against further project construction.Auroville arose from a parched plateau, says Kundhavi Devi, an Auroville resident for the past 15 years, and its forests, farms and water bodies today bear testimony to the self-healing power of Nature when it is assisted with concern and commitment. The greening of its landscape is a big success story of Auroville, for which it has received international acclaim.
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