https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA105IeqmGc
Summary
in English of Koppium Raj TV programme on Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 23 December,
2014:
26 Dec 2014
Raj TV programme in Tamil on Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust on 23 December, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA105IeqmGc
25 Dec 2014
Political parties’ stage demonstration in Puducherry
THE HINDU
PUDUCHERRY, December 25, 2014
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Left parties and VCK
stage a joint stir in front of the Head Post Office in Puducherry on Wednesday.
Photo: T. Singaravelou
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Protestors
want Union government to pass legislation and take over administration of
Ashram.
24 Dec 2014
Ashram Showroom, Guest House come under Attack
The New Indian Express
Chennai, Wednesday, 24 December 2014
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Oriya Nilayam Guest House
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No one was injured in the attacks on Splendour
Auroservice and Oriya Nilayam
23 Dec 2014
Tribute to the departed mother and two sisters
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|
Tribute
to mother Shanthi Devi and sisters Arunashri and Rajyashri for fighting against the misdeeds
of the Ashram Trust (at the Gandhi Statue on the Beach Road, Pondicherry, on 22
December, 2014)
|
22 Dec 2014
BJP, Congress Seek Probe into Ashram Affairs
The New Indian Express Service
Published:
22nd December 2014 06:02 AM
PUDUCHERRY:
The local unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sought a judicial probe
into the allegations of sexual harassment and other irregularities in Sri
Aurobindo Ashram.
BJP
President M Visweswaran said violence and damage to property of Sri Aurobindo
Ashram was not the reply to the charges levelled against Ashram
management by the sisters who were evicted. It is the duty of the Ashram, which
is of international repute, to safeguard itself against irregularities.
21 Dec 2014
Photographs of the Bandh on 20 December, 2014
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| Youth Congress Protesting in front of the Pondicherry Assembly |
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| Pondicherry Railway Station |
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| Pondicherry Bus Stand
|
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| Market Area |
Bandh affects normal life in Puducherry
The Hindu
PUDUCHERRY, December
20, 2014
Updated: December 20,
2014 13:35 IST
Normal life was
affected in the city on Saturday due to the dawn-to-dusk bandh called by
various outfits and political parties demanding that the Union and Puducherry
governments take over the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the wake of two evicted
sisters and their mother killing themselves.
The normally bustling
Puducherry bus stand wore a deserted look as all private and government buses
kept off the roads.
20 Dec 2014
Left Parties to launch separate agitation
The Hindu 20 December, 2014
Left
parties on Friday announced that they would observe bandh separately on
Saturday here demanding that the government bring a special enactment for
keeping Aurobindo Ashram Trust and its Society under control.
Leaders
of Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist),
CPI(Marxist-Leninist) Revolutionary Socialist Party, and All India Forward Bloc
discussed various issues including the death of three women who were expelled
from Ashram.
Congress to extend support to today’s bandh
The Hindu
20 December, 2014
The
main opposition Congress party on Friday extended its support to the bandh call
given by political outfits and social organisations. They have called for the
dawn-to-dusk bandh on December 20 demanding that the Union and Puducherry
governments take over Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Talking
to reporters, Leader of Opposition and senior Congress Leader V.Vaithilingam
said his party would extend full support to the bandh.
He
said, “The death of three women has shocked the people. Even illegal
encroachers would be evicted only after providing alternative accommodation to
them. The sisters were evicted without providing any alternative
accommodation.”
Agitation still rocks Puducherry on Ashram issue
The Hindu 20 December, 2014 |
|
Residents
of Vazhaikulam protesting before Ambabhikshu Apartments
Photo: T. Singaravelou
Trustees
held responsible for death of 3 women
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19 Dec 2014
Bandh tomorrow for govt. takeover of ashram
The
Hindu
December 19, 2014
Puducherry sisters’
death
A host of outfits and
civil society organisations have called for a dawn-to-dusk bandh on December 20
demanding that the Union and Puducherry governments should intervene and take
over Sri Aurobindo Ashram. A decision to this effect was taken at a joint
meeting here on Thursday.
G. Sugumaran,
secretary, Federation for Peoples Rights (FPR), said the Central government
should intervene and appoint a senior IAS official to look after the
administration of the Ashram.
Aurobindo Ashram Turns Inhuman, Evicts Family from Earth
MF Monitor
December
18, 2014
Established in
Pondicherry by Sri Aurobindo on 24 November 1926, the Aurobindo Ashram turned
into a villain to a family of seven in less than a century.
A 2002 case involving
the Ashram and the five sisters in a long-drawn legal battle ended on Dec. 9
with a Supreme Court direction to get the sisters thrown out within 7 days from
the Ambabhikshu House.
The five hapless
sisters had submitted a joint letter to the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram on
December 15 that they would end their lives if forced to leave.
18 Dec 2014
Tension prevails in Pondy
The
Times of India
Tension
prevails in Pondy after three of a family commit suicide; protesters attack
Aurobindo Ashram
Bosco Dominique,TNN | Dec 18, 2014, 03.39 PM IST
Sisters evicted from Aurobindo Ashram: Three including mother commit suicide
ABP Live
PTI
Thursday, 18 December
2014 02:47 PM
Puducherry:
An entire family - five sisters and their parents - jumped into the sea here
this morning, a day after they were evicted from the famous Aurobindo Ashram.
Two of the young
women and their mother have died, the police said, while the father and three
other daughters were rescued by fishermen and have been hospitalized.
The family is from
Bihar. The five sisters had been staying in the residential part of the
Aurobindo Ashram for several years; their parents lived near-by.
The trust that
runs the ashram had 10 years ago accused one of the sisters of
misconduct. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the
trust and said the sisters should vacate their rooms within a week; if they
refused, the court said, the police should evict them.
Yesterday, they
warned to kill themselves if they were moved out, but later were escorted out
by the police after extensive talks.
15 Dec 2014
Quo Vadis? by Sampdas – Response to Ritwik Banerjee
Apropos “An Earnest Appeal” by Shri
Ritwik Banerjee, let it be noted that there are disciples and devotees of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother – both within the Pondicherry outfit and outside – who
are very much perturbed by the manner in which the Masters are denigrated by a
handful of influential persons, possibly encouraged and egged on to such
vicious efforts by those who are close to the Trustees of the Ashram. On the other
hand, the silent majority are perhaps hapless witnesses to it – counting their
day to day rations – since they have no other go if they are thrown out of the
Ashram. The junta that rules now has the leverage to muzzle dissent into
submission by denying food and medical facilities to those who owe allegiance
to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and who dare to protest against atrocities not
only against human beings but against the Divine as well. The protestors on the
other hand appear to have been carrying on their crusade as a sacred duty to
ensure that the Masters are not denigrated in the very Ashram which bears the
name of the Pioneers of the New Age.
There are many like me who share the
concern for the need to cure this festering wound in time so that it does not
become a gangrene threatening the very
fundamentals of the spiritual endeavour of sincere disciples and devotees.
12 Dec 2014
An Earnest Appeal – by Ritwik Banerjee
Dear
Sir & Madam,
I don't know who or
who has not has read the last mail/forwards on the subject. Even a single
response on any point can ensure some peace of mind to its sender. Kindly let
all Aurobindonians know your response thereby on the following counts:
1) Are The Golden
Chain Fraternity & its work maintained by Ashram in any manner?
2) What are its goal
& agenda?
3) Do you agree with
a biography of the Master published in 2008 by the Columbia University Press?
Was it warranted?
4) Don't you think
its author has spent four decades in the Ashram with you in some way betraying
the Ashram?
6 Dec 2014
On Manoj Das’s Clarification with Regard to the Seashore Chit Fund Scam – by an Inmate of the Ashram
We, the devotees of the Mother and
Sri Aurobindo in Odisha, read on 28.10.2014 in the Odiya dailies about Shri
Manoj Das’s clarification “Kinchit hatachakita jane lekhakara prashna o pratibedana”
[a befuddled writer’s question and
submission] regarding his involvement with the scam-tainted Seashore Chit Fund.
Since we feel sorry for such a famous writer like him getting involved in such
dubious money matters, and as we found some discrepancies in the submission of
his position to the dailies, we request him to provide further clarifications.
Besides, since we are associated with Sri Aurobindo Ashram for a long time, the
magical word craft of Shri Manoj Das cannot sway us enough to lose sight of the
reality staring at us.
Here are the following
discrepancies: -
1 Dec 2014
More Facts on the Domestic Bills of Ashram Aristocrats — by An Irrational Ashramite
Fact 1: The Trust provided a measly allowance for engaging
domestic workers only to Ashramites permitted by the Mother or by any Managing Trustee.
Not to each inmate as Bireshwar unwittingly put it (see this post); e.g. among those deserving
it but who were denied, is a 60+ year old whose arthritic hands don’t let him
to wash his clothes.
The term ‘inmate’ craftily legitimised by the present Trust Board is another
can of worms – it covers the full, half, quarter, and occasional ‘inmate’!
Fact 2: First, the Trust blamed its sudden “dire need of
funds” on the Government for forcing it to decriminalize its allowance partly built
on the pretext: “Most domestics are fat and irregular, hence well-off”. Sly as
ever, it sweet-talked the unworldly inmates to “voluntarily reduce” their
allowances, then capriciously hacked it – “often despite the inmate’s old age
infirmities” as Bireshwar says.
27 Nov 2014
Review of “An Atrocious Biography” – Aron Aronite
From the grammatically inaccurate
term ‘Lives’ gets unleashed this narrative style of insinuations about Sri
Aurobindo – as if the Mystic led double lives, one imagined for him by himself
which his followers and the world began believing as well, while the other
‘human aspect’ to be exclusively discovered through this self-appointed and
ambidextrous style of writing pseudo history. Deshpande shows how each left
handed compliment accompanies a dismissive, negativist, suggestive insinuation
about Sri Aurobindo.
In
fact only when we read R.Y. Deshpande’s Atrocious
Biography, it gets clear how academia and intellectuals get honey trapped
by this irreverence towards a Spiritual Stalwart, forgetting the fact that the
gems they hurry to attest as scintillating insights are from someone who has no
academic grounding, no formal education in history writing and doesn’t even have a
post graduation, least of all a PhD in historiography or any mentionable
qualifications in any other discipline. If we are to go by R.Y. Deshpande, we
are hearing the "brilliant" (!) take of an American ‘taxi cab driver and a high
school dropout’ on one of twentieth century’s most profound Mystic, and a
Cambridge alumni who was proposed the Noble prize for Literature.
20 Nov 2014
The Domestic Bills of the Ashram Aristocrats – by Bireshwar Choudhury
The
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust pays each inmate of the Ashram a monthly allowance
for engaging domestic workers to help them in their daily chores. Recently the
minimum wages of domestic workers has been hiked up by the Government to around
Rs 150 rupees a day, which comes to around Rs 4500 a month. As the Ashram Trust
could not afford to pay the higher wages, it drastically reduced the number of
hours of domestic help for the inmates. For example, those inmates who had been
sanctioned eight hours of domestic help have now been re-sanctioned only four
hours to match their existing allowance. Those who had only four hours have now
got only two hours despite, in a few cases, their old age infirmities. But what
is really shocking is that the allowances of Jhumur Bhattacharya and Gauri
Pinto, two elderly highfalutin ladies of the Ashram, have not been touched at
all! Why? Because they enjoy the favour of the present administration and were
once upon a time in the early days of the Ashram School “very close to the
Mother”, which now seems to be the standard excuse for being thoroughly spoilt.
Guess
how much they receive as allowance for their domestic helpers – more than Rs
20.000/ each!
14 Nov 2014
Forgotten Values and Upholding the Ideal – by the Speaking Tree
These days some of the inmates of Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, Pondicherry, seem to be living in a fool’s paradise. They think of
themselves as sadhaks and sadhikas of Integral Yoga without even knowing what
it means. They are buried under the weight of their own ego without letting any
opening for the entry of Light. They boast with great pride that our Ashram is
a laboratory, the cradle of the new race and think that one fine morning we will get
transformed without any personal effort. Yes, no doubt, the Divine Mother with
Her infinite compassion has given us a golden chance to participate in this
great advent and be in the Ashram in the “Hour of God”. But have we ever
introspected to find out whether we are using or misusing this unprecedented
privilege?
9 Nov 2014
Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya on Peter Heehs
Pranab
Kumar Bhattacharya: I don’t trust this Peter
you know, if he goes out of the archives, then I will be happy. Then I know
all our boys will do good work.
He
did not give much importance to Sri Aurobindo [in his history of the Freedom Movement in India]. Only twice or
thrice he mentioned his name, and the way he is changing the writings of Sri
Aurobindo, even the line that could not be read, he has put. I saw afterwards,
the line that was not possible to read in Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting, he put
his own line. Have you seen that? noticed? It is there that I protested and I
don’t trust this man. You have asked a question as to whether I have antipathy
towards the foreigners. It is not so. I have many foreign friends. But I want
to meet them on the same footing. I don’t want to show my superiority nor would
I allow them to show their superiority. If they are arrogant and if they want
to show their superiority, I will act. That’s what I have done.
2 Nov 2014
Strange are the Ways of the Divine! – by Sampdas
Apropos the news about Shri Manoj Das and
the Seashore Chit Fund scam reported in this site on the 28th and 29th
of October 2014, I felt that by Divine Providence the Orissa Seashore Chit
Bounty got channelled back to the flood victims near the Seashore in Orissa.
Prompted by my inner voice, I went through the self assessment given by Shri
Manoj Das in his reply dated 17 September 2014 to the column titled The
Enemy Within in the journal Organiser (dt 21 Sep 2014).
What he wrote angrily there perhaps can be
utilised with minor modifications to reflect on the current theme about Sri
Manoj Das (MD in short).
While Shri MD in his rejoinder to the Organiser
has claimed to be living in Sri Aurobindo Ashram for a little over fifty years,
the tail piece in the site wellwishersofsriaurobindoashram which
republished the same rejoinder, mentions that he has been an inmate of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry since 1973. It is not clear how 1973 to 2014
adds up to 50 years! But possibly Sri Aurobindo’s line in Savitri, “Which less than zero grew and more than one”
has been used in the computation.
29 Oct 2014
Why did Manoj Das keep mum in June 2013 with regard to the Seashore Chit Fund scam?
[It is not
that Manoj Das did not know earlier about the chit fund scam of the Seashore group, the
literary wing of which he was the adviser and for which he received one lakh
rupees a month. Now he throws up his hands imploring the Heavens for justice
and donates all that he has received to the Odisha Chief Minister’s Relief
Fund, but what did he do when the Seashore group was publicly exposed as early
as June 2013, one and a half year ago? Why did he keep mum at that time? And
why did he continue to receive his honorarium? And why does he now create such
a big scene as if he never knew anything about it? The following post, written
by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak on 17 June, 2013, shows the nexus between writers
like Manoj Das and corrupt business tycoons, who use the services of the former
to establish their own credentials in the general public in order to draw unsuspecting
investors to their fraudulent companies. – Bireshwar]
Posted on June 17,
2013 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Subhas
Chandra Pattanayak
Eminent journalist Prasanta Patnaik
has, in his column in Sanchar, exposed such a thread in the matter of economic
offenses committed by Prasant Das and his Seashore group of companies that
every Oriya who prides in his/her language, writers and scribes, feels ashamed.
28 Oct 2014
Manoj Das and the Seashore Chit Fund Scam
[Manoj Das is in the news again for the
wrong reasons. This time it is for his association with the scam tainted chit
fund company run by the Seashore group in Odisha. As usual he has pretended ignorance
and donated the money that he received from the Seashore group (10 lakhs) to
the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. But is not that simply an eyewash to
exonerate himself? Who will not “offer” or “donate” the money when the law finally
catches up on him? We reproduce below some of the news items that have been
posted on the web. – Bireshwar]
24 Oct 2014
Why Sell the Soul for a Mess of Pottage? – by Sampdas
The
brief factual Aide-Memoire on the ongoing debate on the book of Peter Heehs titled
“The Lives of Sri Aurobindo” could serve to focus on the fundamental issues
concerning not just the Sri Aurobindo Ashram commune at Pondicherry but also
the extended Ashram body of devotees, disciples and followers of The Mother and
Sri Aurobindo – living in India as well as overseas.
Though
a large majority of people are aware that there is trouble and mudslinging
between those critical of Peter Heehs and those who defend him, the surprising
thing is that both the groups have their epicentre at Pondicherry. The fact
that the problem has taken a larger dimension about the way matters are handled
by the management of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram leaves us in no doubt that all is
not well over there.
For
the purpose of clarity it is worth mentioning that all who have turned to Sri
Aurobindo and The Mother are sadhaks – though not necessarily living physically
in the precincts of the Pondicherry Ashram in buildings hired or otherwise. And
the Ashram consists of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo and all those who have
accepted them as embodiments of the Divine or as spiritual guides on the path
of Integral Yoga, and who reach their offerings in physical or monetary form to
the Masters through the Ashram Trust. Consistent with this fact, the Ashram
Trust exists basically for providing the administrative and managerial support to
look after the interests of The Mother, Sri Aurobindo, as well as to assure the
basic necessities of life to the Ashram inmates and meet with the requests of the
followers of the Masters for correspondence, reaching Blessings to them and logistics
for their stay etc. The Ashram Trust (with the exception of The Mother) is
neither a team of spiritual leaders nor its Trustees are spiritual successors
to The Mother.
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