I recommend watching this video. Imo, it's a good example of the spirit and vision shared by many Aurovilians.  ~ ronjon

---

A 6.37 minute video pointing out the potentiality of Auroville Universal Township, especially of the International Zone, as a new kind of United Nations, has been posted by way of answer to [the]Davos Question on the You Tube, thanks to timely intimation from Jack Alexander, a former Aurovilian and a close friend of Auroville from USA.

 

Link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtrfRIffAgQ

The highest videos will be shown and discussed at the World Economic Forum starting from 23^rd January. ...

   more »

Chairman of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation Karan Singh said on Sunday that the Pavilion of India had an active role to play in cultural and integration activities of Auroville.

Speaking after performing the ‘bhoomi pooja’ for a housing complex and Swagatham, a VIP guest house, Dr. Karan Singh said there were many groups working towards their goals and they could work on various topics.

He said there was a very high concentration of creativity in Auroville and added that the residents were pursuing a collective yoga. “People of different religions, castes, creeds and communities are living together. There will be some inter-personal conflicts in such a situation but they have to live and work together to create a sense of community.” ...   more »

Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission Sam Pitroda has called for at least 1,000 community radio stations to be set up in the country in a year's time. -- In a video message to participants at a media workshop in Auroville here, Pitroda also called for greater awareness of radio's usefulness.

Expressing concern over the ban on news and current events under India's radio policy, Pitroda said he believed that "the community radio can fulfil its objectives to facilitate exchange and bring out more information on events of local importance". -- He emphasised the "need for accessible and affordable technology to enable a larger number of CR (community radio) stations".

Is community radio working in India? Not really, if participants at the workshop are to be heard. -- It is much easier to get a commercial license for an FM station than a license for community radio, activists said at a two-day workshop here, pointing out that India's current radio regulation is heavily tilted against community radio.    more »

A toxic purple haze of diesel exhaust hangs over the rice and jute fields here in northeastern India, and bird songs are frequently drowned out by the chug-a-chug-a-chug of diesel generators. — Across the developing world, cheap diesel generators from China have become a favorite way to provide electricity. — They power everything from irrigation pumps to television sets, allowing growing numbers of rural villages in many poor countries to grow more crops and connect to the wider world. — But as the demand increases for the electricity that makes those advances possible, it is often being met through the dirtiest, most inefficient means, creating pollution in many remote areas that used to have pristine air and negligible emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases...

Another popular approach being tried in India and elsewhere -- using solar energy to recharge lanterns by day -- has run into difficulty even as diesel prices would seem to make it more competitive. — The problem is that prices for photovoltaic panels for solar energy have surged as governments in industrialized countries, especially Germany, have encouraged greater use of renewable energy, said Hemant Lamba, the coordinator of Aurore, a renewable energy service company in Auroville, India. — "It's harder to do any solar energy projects in India," he said. ...   more »

Selvi Alagappan rises early each day to tend to her small patch of crossandra and jasmine flowers in the rural Indian village of Mangalam, in the Union of Pondicherry. These and the mushrooms she cultivates in a nearby shack bring in a monthly income that, while still below the poverty line, keeps her large family from going hungry. — Two years ago, however, starvation was very much a reality for Selvi and her family. But like many other participants of the Biovillage Project, a collaborative development programme described by its authors as "pro-nature, pro-women, pro-poor", Selvi was given the tools and technical assistance to increase her household income and get her back on her feet again.

The project is run by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, a local non-governmental organization in Chennai, with funding and technical assistance from the Government of India and international agencies including FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The project began in 1992 with 42 participants in three villages. It now operates in 19 villages with a team of 24 project specialists. ...   more »

...Being hyped as both an Object d’ Art for your home (it folds in half at the press of a button) and zippy commuter (uses an electric ‘smart power’ motor, based on something called the Passol motor unit). Free of petrol and oil apparently. Die-cast aluminium provides the curves and a Lithium-ion battery feeds the “permanent magnet synchronous motor“. ...    more »

Imagine a cluster of these hanging at Auroville! ...

Uses for these durable Spheres are limited only by ones imagination. Healing, meditation, photography, canopy research, leisure and game watching are just some of the things you could do.

Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown or from any other solid objects like buildings or rock faces. A web of rope is connected to any strong points available. This replaces the foundation of a conventional building. A suspended tree house uses the forest for its foundation. The occupants have a vested interest in the health of the grove. The supporting web also mirrors our connectedness to our surroundings. Each sphere has four attachments on top and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each attachment is strong enough to carry the entire sphere and contents. ...    more »

Here's an interesting article on how "Segway in Paradise," a company in Pittsburgh, PA [USA], is very successfully using Segway PTs (Personal Transporters) for tours around town. Perhaps these could be used for tours around Auroville? Are any AV entrepreneurs listening? ...   more »

The Bangladeshi banker Muhammad Yunus, who invented the practice of making small, unsecured loans to the poor, warned today that the globalized economy was becoming a dangerous “free-for-all highway.
“Its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies,” Dr. Yunus said during a lavish ceremony at which he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. “Bangladeshi rickshaws will be thrown off the highway.”
While international companies motivated by profit may be crucial in addressing global poverty, he said, nations must also cultivate grassroots enterprises and the human impulse to do good. ...    more »

A team of engineers at solar cell manufacturer Spectrolab has produced a photovoltaic system with a record-breaking conversion efficiency of 40.7 per cent.
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has verified the milestone, which should help III-V semiconductor technology to increase its penetration of the market for terrestrial solar power systems.
Spectrolab CEO David Lillington hailed the achievement, and said that once the high-efficiency cells were qualified, they could be manufactured in very high volumes with little impact on production flow. ...    more »

... India’s current level of consumption (ecological footprint) is .8 gha (global hectares per capita) - already double India’s biocapacity of .4 gha, although it is significantly below humanity’s consumption level of 2.2 gha, which is 25% above the planet’s biocapacity of 1.18 gha. At India’s current level of exponential economic growth (7.5%) and population growth (1.7%), its economy will quadruple and its population will double by 2050. If Auroville doesn’t take this situation seriously and manifest a viable alternative infrastructure and economy that works, its real reason for existing, along with humanity’s as a whole, may never be realized. ...   more »

Introducing the Green 50, a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time--and make serious cash along the way. ...   more »

Ok, this review convinced me. I'm going to order my own copy of this new book, created by Alex Steffen, the executive editor of the amazingly informative website "Worldchanging.com," which Rich alerted us to in a recent post to SCIY. ~ ron

...Part encyclopedia of socially conscious companies and movements, part picture-book (it includes gorgeous color photographs by leading photographers such as Edward Burtynsky), and part how-to instructions on becoming a greener consumer or business, the nearly 600-page volume is an invaluable resource you can use without booting up your computer... And to justify the dead trees required to produce the tome—and set a compelling example for readers—publisher Harry N. Abrams printed each copy on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper. Abrams also purchased wind credits (from www.renewablechoice.com) equal to the amount of electricity needed to manufacture the book.   more »

I wonder if Auroville's planners are keeping up with the immensely creative work on urban design now underway around the world?

New York’s Van Alen Institute['s] The Good Life: New Public Spaces of Recreation, an exhibition at Hudson River Park’s Pier 40 showcasing dozens of projects either planned, under construction, or already realized that insert the rare combination of scenic refuge and pure pleasure into the hurly-burly of cities. “People are just desperate for these sites,” senior curator Zoë Ryan says. “Not everyone can escape the city during the summer, so this sort of destination has become increasingly important.” ...   more »

Silicon Valley-based SunPower Corporation is looking to add a bit more juice to your rooftop, announcing its highest power and most efficient solar panel to date. The SPR-315 solar panel is based on the company's brand spankin' new Gen 2 solar cells, which have a rated power output of 315 watts and boast 22 percent photovoltaic (PV) efficiency -- that's opposed to the 7% to 17% common in most commercial PV systems. ...   more »

The WINDHUNTER SYSTEM concept is an offshore, floating system that uses several wind turbines for power output to produce hydrogen by electrolyzing water. This continuously manned, safe and stable system will be easily maintained on-board while relocating to the best wind conditions for the wind turbines. The produced hydrogen gas may be compressed and stored as gas or liquefied and placed in insulated tanks. The compressed gas or tanks of liquefied gas may be transferred by helicopter or surface ships with insulated containers. ...   more »

Could this be an option for quiet, non-polluting transportation for Auroville?

EPIC Technology – Electric Propulsion by Intelligent Control – uses Evader’s propriety technology and programming to create an ideal combination of performance and safety. -- Evader’s EPIC technology encompasses the design, motor, controller (patent pending), Hyper Drive and all safety components. Evader owns the world rights to manufacture and market their patented technology in all their electric vehicles. -- Evader’s cutting-edge technology is incorporated in all 2006 products giving the company a technological advantage over the competition. It offers unparalleled performance and sets Evader apart from all other electric motor scooters. -- Evader plans to incorporate its technology into electric motor scooters, motorcycles, ATVs, and other electric vehicles. ...   more »

The fifth developing country has signed up for MIT's "One Laptop per Child" program. This is the open-source project that India recently opted out of, reportedly because of fears of losing control of the education of their children.

The government of Libya is reported to have agreed to provide its 1.2m school children with a cheap durable laptop computer by June 2008. -- The laptops offer internet access and are powered by a wind-up crank. They cost $100 and manufacturing begins next year, says [the non-profit organization located at MIT's Media Lab] One Laptop per Child. -- The non-profit association's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, said the deal was reached on Tuesday in Libya.    more »

...a decade or two from now, when we look back at this period, it is more likely that the work that will fix the long zoom in the popular imagination will be neither a movie nor a book nor anything associated with the cultural products that dominated the 20th century. It will be a computer game. ...   more »