India Classified Under Elite Chess Nation

By Arvind Aaron

The year 2011 was good for many Indian chess players. Indian tally is 204 titled players including the increases made in this past year. Measuring the chess activity in India, it is easy to predict that was are on the way up. While Anand continues to be the World Chess Champion, Koneru Humpy might have missed a great opportunity against Hou Yifan of China in the world women's chess championship when she lost the match 2.5-5.5 with two games to spare.

India occupies the top 10 ranking by the FIDE in both men and women and thus is considered as "Elite Chess Nation"

Rating restricted events took over Indian chess in a wave and there are people in all parts of the nation competing to get the present floor level rating of 1200 and up by FIDE. FIDE has made ratings for rapid events too from January 2012 and a new wave can be expected in India. New events in Bhiwani, Haryana and Visakhapatnam have joined the elite list of International Opens. India is a fast developing chess nation.

Bharat Singh Chauhan of Delhi took over from D.V. Sundar of Chennai as Honorary Secretary of the All India Chess Federation and the transition was a smooth one. Mr.J.C.D. Prabhakar of Chennai replaced N. Srinivasan also of Chennai as President of the AICF in another smooth transition. N. Srinivasan completed an eventful decade at the helm of the Federation which saw FIDE making India a separate Zone.. He brought in expertise to manage and guide the Federation in difficult times. D.V. Sundar took over from zero in the bank and was able to raise deposits of nearly three Crores with extraordinary professional sports management. The Srinivasan-Sundar team scrapped the planned prize money tax and eliminated the overaged players from the National age group competitions.

The new team of Prabhakar-Bharat Singh and D.V. Sundar (who is Vice President of FIDE now) came close to scoring organisational victories when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa agreed to sponsor the Anand v Gelfand World Chess Championship match at Chennai. FIDE however awarded the series to be staged at Moscow. India has to wait and we would be a preferred choice next time. Then, Tamil Nadu also became the first state to make chess playing made compulsory in schools. School children in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat learn chess and this is a great start for the future champions. Our administrators have also been recognized by FIDE. While Mr.D.V.Sundar was elected as the Vice President of FIDE, Mr.Bharat Singh was elected as the President of the Commonwealth Chess Association and Mr.R.M.Dongre is the President Asian Zone 3.7.


Chess has become a popular sport now that insitutions which in the past did not allow players to compete in chess games are taking the lead to promote the game. The World Junior Chess Championship held at Chennai in August 2011 was our biggest chess event and Karthikeyan Murali's World Under-12 title was the biggest achievement. World champion Viswanathan Anand did not have a great year on the board but on the personal side, he and his wife Aruna were blessed with a baby boy in April after 15 years of marriage.

The indianchessfed.org website is the most popular website among all sport Federations of India. It brings news, results, events approved, ratings of Indians, live coverage of Indian and International events held in India. If 2011 saw growth at the grassroot level, the new year promises much more as we move from strength to strength.
 

Home                                           Published on December 31^st  2011