Young stargazer puts Maha tribal village on astro-tourism map

Nashik: While thousands of young people leave their villages in search of brighter futures under city lights, a tribal youth from a remote corner of Surgana taluka believes prosperity lies in preserving the darkness.For Vipul Khiradi, the journey began with a simple act of looking up.One night in 2019, as a 14-year-old Class VIII student at Eklavya English Medium Residential School in Satana, he attended a stargazing programme organised by Pune-based AstronEra. The stars sparked a fascination that would eventually lead him to dream of putting his native village, Udmal, on the global astro-tourism map.Today, the 22-year-old physics student is at the centre of an ambitious effort to transform the tribal-dominated village into Maharashtra’s first Dark Sky Community, a place where the night sky is protected from light pollution and turned into an asset for education, conservation and tourism.“I was attracted to the twinkles,” Vipul said.