Vaishali is the Arjuna Award 2023 recipient, Dronacharya Award for R B Ramesh in Chess
R Vaishali became the third Indian woman to achieve the Grandmaster title. She ended the 12-year-long wait for an Indian female to earn the highest title one can achieve in chess. Before fulfilling the GM title requirements, she won the FIDE Women's Grand Swiss 2023 and earned herself a spot in the FIDE Women's Candidates 2024. That's not all, she won Silver medal at 19th Asian Games 2022 before that and also won a team and individual Bronze medal at 44th Chess Olympiad 2022. GM FST R B Ramesh has a long list of accolades. At FIDE World Cup 2023, his student R Praggnanandhaa won Silver medal and also secured a spot at the FIDE Candidates 2024. Photo: President of India twitter
Dronacharya Award in chess, nearly after 16.5 years
The last Dronacharya Award that was conferred in chess was back in 2007 to Koneru Ashok. Almost 16.5 years later, GM FST R B Ramesh received the coveted award in chess. IM Bhakti Kulkarni and GM R Praggnanandhaa are the Arjuna Award 2022 recipients in Chess. Vaishali and Ramesh both received cash prize, a statuette of Arjuna and Dronacharya respectively, and a certificate each.
The narrator spoke about following achievements of Vaishali:
1. Silver medal at the 19th Asian Games 2022
2. Bronze medal at the FIDE Online Olympiad 2021
3. Gold medal at the FIDE Online Olympiad 2020
The narrator mentioned the following achievement of R B Ramesh:
1. Coach of the FIDE World Cup 2023 Silver medalist - R Praggnanandhaa
2. Coach of the Asian Continental 2019 Silver medalist - Karthikeyan Murali
3. Coach of the 19th Asian Games 2022 Silver medalist - Savitha Shri B
Arjuna Award
Arjuna award is the second-highest sporting honour in the country. The recipients of the Arjuna Award are selected by a committee constituted by the Ministry and are honoured for their "good performance in the field of sports over a period of four years" at the international level and for having shown "qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline."
List of Arjuna Award winners in Chess
| Year | Recipient | Award | Gender |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Manuel Aaron | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1980–1981 | Rohini Khadilkar | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1983 | Dibyendu Barua | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1984 | Pravin Thipsay | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1985 | Viswanathan Anand | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1987 | Devaki Prasad | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1987 | Bhagyashree Thipsay | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1990 | Anupama Gokhale | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2000 | Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2002 | Krishnan Sasikiran | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2003 | Koneru Humpy | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2005 | Surya Shekhar Ganguly | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2006 | Pentala Harikrishna | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2007 | Harika Dronavalli | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2009 | Tania Sachdev | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2010 | Parimarjan Negi | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2013 | Abhijeet Gupta | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2022 | Bhakti Kulkarni | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2022 | R Praggnanandhaa | Arjuna Award | Male |
Dronacharya awards
The Dronacharya Award, officially known as Dronacharya Award for Outstanding Coaches in Sports and Games, is sports coaching honour of India. The award is named after Drona, often referred as "Dronacharya" or "Guru Drona", a character from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata of ancient India.
List of Dronacharya Award winners in Chess
| Year | Recipient(s) | Discipline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Raghunandan Vasant Gokhle | Chess |
| 2006 | Koneru Ashok | Chess |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Ramachandran Ramesh | Chess |
The important tweets
President of India, Droupadi Murmu
Vishy Anand, India's first Grandmaster, Arjuna Award 1985
Pentala Harikrishna, India's sixth Grandmaster, Arjuna Award 2006
What's next for Vaishali and Ramesh? She has FIDE Women's Candidates 2024 coming up in April. As for the super coach, GM FST R B Ramesh, his student, GM R Praggnanadhaa has 86th Tata Steel Masters 2024. The first round starts on Saturday 13th January at 2 p.m. local time, 5:30 p.m. IST.
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Bhakti Kulkarni and Praggnanandhaa are the Arjuna Award 2022 recipients in Chess
@ 01/12/2022 by ChessBase India (en) |
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No Arjuna award for chess players since 7 years - when will the drought end?
@ 23/08/2020 by Sagar Shah (en) |
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No Arjuna award for Indian chess players
@ 31/08/2017 by Sagar Shah (en) |