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FIDE President For "Zone"
Status For India
By Arvind Aaron
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
said India qualified for the "separate zone" status and would
make this happen in the next FIDE General Body Meeting.
The FIDE President was in Chennai on his first visit to the city
and had an interactive session with the chess fraternity which
included leading players, officials, arbiters, trainers and the
press at the Raj Park in Alwarpet in the heart of the city.
Earlier, D.V. Sundar, Honorary Secretary of AICF, welcomed the
guests and pledged India's support to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in the
upcoming FIDE elections and handed over a letter of support on
behalf of All India Chess Federation.
Sundar said the support of India and its neighbours, Bangladesh,
Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka will make Kirsan Ilyumzhinov win
again. He introduced Ali of the Maldives Chess Federation who
backed India's support and plegded support for Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov.
Thanking India for the support, Ilyumzhinov said, India's
support was vital. He said he spent 50 million dollars on chess
from 1995 to 2010 and solved FIDE's problems.
When I took over FIDE it had 150,000 Swiss Francs in the bank
and unable to pay even salaries to its employees. Now, we have a
bank balance of over a million Euros said the FIDE President.
In 1995, FIDE needed political and financial stability. I
provided both. The crisis was the chess world was divided with
two champions. In my time this was solved and we have one
champion, your own, Vishy Anand.
After several meeting with IOC bosses like Samaranch and present
officials, we are the recognised body of the International
Olympic Committee said Ilyumzhinov. They asked us if we have to
be included in the summer or winter games said Ilyumzhinov.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov singled out and said India in the last
four-five years have become very active with plenty of chess
tournaments.
Talking of what he has done and what he intends to do in equal
time, he said his first move after getting reelected as FIDE
President in 2010 will be to introduce chess in schools among
the 170-member nations of FIDE.
Then he said training in local languages like French or Arabic
or whichever will be his priority. His third priority will be to
push the CACDEC programme of FIDE.
About his rival Anatoly Karpov he said he admired him as a chess
player. He said he has given him about 5 million dollars of his
money as prize money in various chess events.
Finally, he said FIDE intends to have an office in "your city".
Government of India observer International Master Manuel Aaron,
in his address said he met Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at the World Chess
Championship in Las Vegas 1999. In times when many people take
money out of chess, chess is fortunate to have Ilyumzhinov who
brings in so much money into the game. Manuel Aaron
congratulated Ilyumzhinov in advance for his victory in the FIDE
elections.
Among those who were present included FIDE Zone 3.2 President
Bharat Singh Chauhan of Delhi, AICF Vice President R.M. Dongre,
TNSCA General Secretary K. Muralimohan, TNSCA Vice President
J.C.D. Prabhakaran, India's first International Arbiter V.
Kameswaran.
Among players, GMs K. Sasikiran, Arun Prasad, B. Adhiban, G.N.
Gopal, R.R. Laxman, IM S. Vijayalakshmi, WGM
S. Meenakshi, World Under-16 champion S.P. Sethuraman and other
International Masters from the city were present.
FIDE President also took on questions from the press. Asked
about India's continued success in the age group events,
Ilyumzhinov said it is because of the motherland of world chess,
AICF under the new regime of officials for the last 4-5 years
did a lot for them and of course the idol Vishy Anand.
Asked to compare chess in India and Russia, Ilyumzhinov said after
1991, there was no development in Russian chess. India is an
active chess country with events happening virtually every hour
he commended. He said Russia is making some development in the
last couple of years.
About the link of trainers and FIDE, he said much could be done
as FIDE's income is growing. We hope to increase this budget ten
times and translate training material in various languages to
make literature available to all people.
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Published on Aug 26th 2010
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Caution
