Sport - Chess

India to host World championships
By P.K. Ajith Kumar

KOZHIKODE, MARCH 10. It is not just on the 64 squares of the chessboard that India is making rapid, right moves. The country is also emerging as an important host to World championships.

India, which had played host to the World championship in 2000 (in New Delhi), has been allotted the World team championship and the World youth championship for 2005, according to the All India Chess Federation secretary and FIDE vice- president, Mr. P.T. Ummer Koya.

``I am happy that our bids have been accepted by FIDE,'' he told The Hindu over telephone from Hotel Leela Palace, Goa, where the the presidential board meeting was held on Sunday. Expectedly, Hyderabad was decided as the venue for this year's World Cup at the board meeting.

``As the Government of Andhra Pradesh and Chief Minister Mr. Chandrababu Naidu have been extremely supportive of chess over the last few years, the AICF is delighted that the World Cup would be held in Hyderabad. The Andhra Government has already sent the AICF a demand draft of Rs. 25 lakhs in advance for the conduct of the World Cup and has assured us that the remaining Rs. 25 lakhs will be paid later,'' said Mr. Koya. ``The way the Andhra Government has treated its chess players, like Pendyala Harikrishna, Koneru Humpy and D. Harika, is exemplary. No other State in India has given such patronage to chess players,'' he added.``

The biggest advantage of the World Cup coming to India - it will be held from October 9 to 20 - is that the country, by virtue of being the host, will be able to field four players, instead of just one. That is also precisely the reason why the AICF is very keen to bring the World youth championship to India.

The championships, for children in the age groups of under-10, 12, 14, 16 and 18, have been held for the last four years in Spain, which has proved such a favourite hunting ground for the Indians (Humpy, Aarthie Ramaswamy and Deep Sengupta have won World titles there). ''Imagine how many kids would be able to take part in the World championship when we conduct it here,`` Mr. Koya said.

India's young players could also benefit a great deal from the World junior championship, to be held here next year (Kozhikode in fact has hosted the event on two occasions before, in 1993 and 1998). The defending World junior girls' champion is an Indian, Koneru Humpy, and so was the World junior boys' champion of 1987, Viswanathan Anand.

Chess in National Games

Mr. Koya also said that chess was almost certain to be included as a discipline in the next National Games, scheduled to be held in Hyderabad in November. ''I had discussed this with Mr. L.V. Subrahmanyam, vice chairman and managing director, Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh, recently, and he was very much in favour of the proposal, the AICF secretary said. ``The Andhra Chief Minister himself has requested the Indian Olympic Association president Mr. Suresh Kalamadi to include chess in the Hyderabad National Games. So I am very confident the sport will make its debut in this year's National Games itself would be another big boost to the development of chess in India.''

He said that AICF would continue to hold international Grandmaster (GM) tournaments - there have been three of them in the last three months - besides the official World championships. ``Because that's the only way by which we can produce more GMs and achieve the AICF's goal of making India a superpower in world chess,'' he said.

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