Indian Players Master Chaturanga

For those of you, who like me were not aware of this, here is a piece
of Chess trivia, from the New York Times, "Nobody knows with certainty
where and when chess was invented. A widely accepted theory is that it
developed out of an Indian game called chaturanga that was created in
the sixth century."

"Yet India was not among the world's chess powers until Viswanathan
Anand, the current world champion, appeared on the scene in the late
1980s. His success started a chess revolution in India, which now
produces great players with regularity," reports the Times, "In
addition to Anand, India has two other players, Krishnan Sasikiran and
Pentala Harikrishna, ranked among the top 55 in the world, and a
third, Humpy Koneru, is No. 2 on the list of female players. She could
soon become the second woman to break into the world's top 100."

"India's growing influence was on display at the World Junior Chess
Championship, which ended last weekend in Turkey. Three Indians did
well: Abhijeet Gupta captured the title, Harika Dronavalli won the
women's title, and Parimarjan Negi, the second-youngest grandmaster in
history, was a half point behind Gupta. (Negi also tied for first last
month at the World Open in Philadelphia.)," reports the Times.

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/crosswords/chess/24chess.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y