Odisha’s 20-year-old engineering student Samarendra Patra has done the State proud for representing India and presenting the perspective of youths at the International Human Rights Summit in Brussels.
Patra, a poet, was the only Indian among 40 delegates from different countries at the 10th annual summit held from September 5 to 9.Held under the aegis of Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI), the objective of the summit was to sensitise youth delegates on human rights so that they could become advocates of tolerance and peace.
Stating that problems in the society had always inspired him to write poems on peace, Patra, a BTech student of Mechanical Engineering at the SRM University, Chennai, said his presentation was keenly heard by scholars, human rights activists, professors and United Nations officials.Patra made it to the limca Book of Records as the “World Poetry Youth Poet Ambassador of India” earlier this year.
In the World Poetry International Peace Festival at Vancouver in Canada, he had recited his verse The Threshold of love based on the Taj Mahal appealing to his compatriots to stop polluting the river Yamuna which is having an adverse effect on the white marble mausoleum.
Patra used to write poems from the age of eight, many of which were published in national and international literary journals. His anthology of poems My Musings – The Poetry Within was published about three years ago.