Chakrata teen returns from North Pole expedition as India’s sole youth delegate

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Lucky Rawat, a 15-year-old Class 10 student from Chakrata, Uttarakhand, is set to return to India on August 15 after reaching the geographic North Pole aboard the nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy. He was India's sole youth representative among students from 22 countries on Russia's 'Icebreaker of Knowledge' expedition, organised by state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Lucky won the spot through a three-stage national competition involving natural-science quizzes and project defences, beating nearly 5,000 Indian applicants. On the floating university, he attended workshops and lectures by polar scientists, and shared photographs of his Himalayan hometown with peers from Egypt, Tanzania, and South Africa. He described the Arctic as a continuous white sheet with 24-hour daylight, exceeding everything he had watched in videos.