AICF Core Team Unchanged
By Arvind Aaron


The All India Chess Federation at its Central Council and Annual General Body Meetings at the M.A.C. Stadium in Chennai elected the same team core team with N. Srinivasan as President, D.V. Sundar as Honorary Secretary and Mr.Bharat Singh as Hon.Treasurer. While Srinivasan is in his third term, Sundar is having his second term. The reduced term period is from 2008-2011. Earlier each term used to be four years.

The highlight of our 2005-2008 period was overcoming a turbulent period, said D.V. Sundar. We have a surplus cash of over Rupees 90 lakhs despite foregoing revenue of nearly Rs. 50 lakhs in the last two years - reduced annual fees for 4000 players from Rs.500 to Rs.250,abolising direct affiliation for private academics ( 44 academies were paying Rs.20,000/- each per annum ) and took other player related expenses said Sundar.

International Master Manuel Aaron who was the returning officer for the elections, announced the results as exactly the same number of applications for the exact posts available and all of them were elected "unopposed".

Office-bearers: President: N. Srinivasan; Vice Presidents: Kashmir Singh, A. Narasimha Reddy, Sameer Salgaocar, Pradeep Jain, Ravindra M. Dongre, A. Bakthavachalam; Secretary: D.V. Sundar; Treasurer: Bharat Singh; Joint Secretaries: G. Bhaskar, Neeraj Kumar Mishra, Vipnesh Bhardwaj, F. Anil, P.K. Choudhuri and Udayan Kanti Ghosh.

The three newcomers into the AICF team are Dr.Kashmir Singh, an IPS Officer,Mr.A. Narasimha Reddy, Chairman Bar Council from Andhra Pradesh and Mr.G. Bhaskar Industrialist from Andamans.

Among the notable decisions, AICF would be using the Monroi System of relaying live games on the internet. "We would be able to do 30 games at one go," said R.M. Dongre, Vice President. It will help viewing most Indian games from Under-7 Nationals to International competitions into the computers of chess lovers around the world.

AICF Secretary D.V. Sundar said the AICF planned to procure 1000 chess clocks with aid from the Central Government as organisers had to "beg, borrow," chess clocks to organise chess events or pay huge rentals. "Our plan will be to retain 200 at the AICF and give the option to the states to buy the rest of the 800."

The Andhra Pradesh Chess Association came under fire from most states regarding overaged players in age group competitions. A. Narasimha Reddy, the new Vice President of the AICF, from Andhra who is also Chairman of the APCA assured that he will look into this menace and ensure steps are taken.

The AICF decided to strip the gold medal of Madhumitha who had previously won the National Under - 7 Girls age group title and was found to be overaged at Delhi while playing in National Under - 9 this April. The members appreciated the efforts taken by Delhi Chess Association in identyfing the over aged players despite hurdles cretaed by the parents of the players.

Listing the major achievements of the AICF in the 2005-2008 period, Sundar said we were tough in the overaged players issue, provided plenty of coaching for our players and also paid appearance fee of Rs.10 lakh for the Turin Olympiad in 2006. Anand who won the World title in 2007 was presented Rs.10 lakh on his return by the AICF President N. Srinivasan.

Sundar thanked the Central Government for starting with the juniors by giving them overseas exposure trips last year to extend it to sub-juniors this year. All our proposals have been cleared by the Governent, he said.

Dresden Chess Olympiad

On the item of the Dresden Olympiad, D.V. Sundar said he asked Vishy Anand to decide on his own participation once he completed his match against Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn. About Koneru Humpy, he said he gave her the choice of playing for the men or women team. she had informed that she wanted to play in some other European event and hence would skip this Chess Olympiad. In chess circles it is spoken that she wanted to safeguard her second place in the rating after Judit Polgar by opting out of the less lucrative Olympiad

Home                                                            Published on 19^th June, 2008