Other States - Puducherry

Celebrating 40 years of collaboration

PUDUCHERRY: It will be a special celebration of a long-term collaboration as Auroville–the universal township celebrates 40 years of partnership with the United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on Friday in Paris.

The celebrations will comprise a roundtable conference on the theme – Auroville: an emerging society-future perspectives. A musical event – A Sense of Infinite – which is a fusion of contemporary Indian music and western by Auroville’s group NADAKA will be part of the celebrations, a release said.

In fact, the General Assembly of UNESCO had passed resolutions on Auroville in 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983. In its fourth resolution in 1983, UNESCO said it recognised that “Auroville seeks to ensure international understanding, peace, innovative education, a learning society and all around material and spiritual development for harmonious individual and collective growth”.

UNESCO had noted that the work of Auroville aimed at “restoring the ecological balance of a severely deforested eroded land by an extensive programme of afforestation, erosion control and soil conservation”.

Prior to the 40th anniversary celebrations, Auroville had its presence at UNESCO headquarters, Paris, in two exhibitions in 1993 and 1998 and 35th anniversary inauguration in 2003, said the release.

The UNESCO-sponsored projects in Auroville included recovering the voice of women in the villages and in Auroville in 1998, local Tamil culture heritage and language in 1999, support to environmental educational training centre in 2005 and Auroville Tsunami Rehabilitation Programme in 2006.

The proposed projects in Auroville included Auroville Universal Township application for World Heritage status and Auroville International zone,

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu