Four titles for India

India improved on its lone title of 2007 by bagging four titles or gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals in the World Youth Chess Championship that concluded at Vung Tau in Vietnam on October 30. IM Baskar Adhiban of Velammal School, Chennai won the World Under-16 championship in style as India made a podium sweep in this section. Chennai's National Sub-Junior champion S.P. Sethuraman finished second to take home the silver. Debashis Das won the bronze medal."We are proud that our son won the World Under-16 championship," said Baskar, a Chennai based businessman who runs a printing press. Most such parents were on the Internet or already at Vietnam.At Batumi in 2006 India took five titles but this time it was more significant since Russia did not play in 2006 at Georgia and this time the best players took from all the nations. The significance is that the Indian wave is getting wider and higher in chess. A record 110 Indians took part. So much so that next time there might be an Air India jet flying our players to the Youth Chess Championship at Turkey. Vidit Santosh Gujrathi is on a roll. The boy from Nasik is developing into a mega star. He had a strong showing in the Commonwealth Championship at Nagpur. He won the Under-14 title by a clear margin of 9.5/11.