
SUNITH RAO – Competition Pilot & XC Flying Freak
Born into the first family of paragliding at Kamshet, Sunith grew up with the sport of paragliding. He has a natural flair for flying and at the age of 23 has already been on podiums in various paragliding competitions in Europe. Sunith is one of the leading cross-country paragliding pilots in Asia. He was only 4 years old when he had his first experience of flying in the vast blue skies and discovered his love for paragliding. He began ground training at the at of 10, Elementary Pilot at 14, Club Pilot at 15, SIV course with paragliding Guru, Jockey Sanderson, in Oludeniz, Turkey, at 19, Cross Country Course with Escape Paragliding at the age of 20, XC Clinic in Piedrahita, Spain with Steve Ham at the age of 22 and SIV course with Deby Choudhary at 23.
His current FAI ranking:
XC National Ranking – #1
XC World Ranking – #11
Today Nirvana Adventures, nature study projects, and her garden at Kamshet take up much of her time. Astrid also runs Native Place, a purpose built guesthouse that doubles as a residential paragliding school at Kamshet inspired by the sustainable, ecology conscious homesteads of village India. She networks with the BNHS and other conservation organizations in the areas of nature education and conservation.
She reports on the nesting of the endangered vulture population in Kamshet to the Peregrine Fund.


