Maharashtra has yet another distinction for itself.
In the International Olympiad for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IOAA), that concluded recently in Beijing, two students who have secured gold medal in the world Olympiad are from Maharashtra — Nitesh Kumar Singh from Mumbai and Aniruddha Bapat from Pune.
Singh’s performance was also adjudged the best in the theoretical round. Chirag Modi from Indore was the third student who notched a gold.
With three golds and two bronze medals, India stood first in the medal tally at the competition. Academicians said, unlike science Olympiads, students whole-heartedly participate in astronomy Olympiads and they get selected as well.
“Many students from Maharashtra get selected in the final team that represents the country. Hyderabad and Delhi also has students representing India in IOAA. However, East is lagging behind among all zones: till date, we haven’t been able to get a single person from this region to participate in these programmes. My feeling is very few students from the region take an active interest in astronomy Olympiad programmes,” said Mayank Vahia, national coordinator, astronomy Olympiads at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, which is the coordinator for science and astronomy Olympiads in India.
“The state has many local hobby astronomers’ clubs which propagate astronomy in a big way. Thus, students develop interest in this ‘non-curricular’ subject at an early age. In most other states, students don't have any exposure to astronomy. Hence, many good students are apprehensive about appearing in the astronomy Olympiad,” said Aniket Sule, who led the Indian team.
The Indian team’s performance this year is better than 2009 when it had ranked second with two golds, two silvers and one bronze medal.
Around 24 teams from 22 countries participated in the 4th IOAA.
