How Chennai turned India into a chess powerhouse

Special Students watch a live telecast of India’s Gukesh Dommaraju competing against China’s Ding Liren during the FIDE World Chess Championship Singapore 2024, at a school in Chennai. (File/AFP)
Students watch a live telecast of India’s Gukesh Dommaraju competing against China’s Ding Liren during the FIDE World Chess Championship Singapore 2024, at a school in Chennai. (File/AFP)
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Updated 30 December 2024
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How Chennai turned India into a chess powerhouse

Students watch telecast of India’s Gukesh Dommaraju competing against China’s Ding Liren during FIDE World Chess Championship.
  • World’s youngest chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju is from Chennai
  • One school chain, Velammal Nexus, has helped produce 22 Indian grandmasters

NEW DELHI: In a country where the love for cricket is a national obsession, chess is the sport of choice in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where its city of Chennai is emerging as India’s chess capital.

Over a third of the country’s 85 grandmasters have come from Tamil Nadu, with the majority of them based in Chennai, including 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, the world’s youngest chess champion.

Dommaraju won the title in early December at the Fide World Championship 2024 held in Singapore, defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China, who was 14 years his senior.

Dommaraju is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand — India’s first grandmaster — who won it five times and is also from Chennai.

The city’s success in bringing up champions over the years can be traced back to the Velammal Nexus School, which has helped produce as many as 22 grandmasters, including Dommaraju and 2024 Chess World Cup finalist R. Praggnanandhaa.

“Chess players are heroes in Tamil Nadu,” Velavan Subbiah, the main coach at the Velammal Nexus school, told Arab News.

“In Chennai, people prefer to play chess rather than invest in cricket. Viswanathan Anand laid the foundation here. Now Gukesh is the new hero. His win in the world championship has inspired the youngsters and there is new zeal among them to do better.”

The 55-year-old who started focusing on chess after seeing his daughters win grandmaster and FIDE master titles said Velammal not only trains young players but also sponsors those who have financial difficulties.

Now a chain of 15 schools in Chennai, the academy trains about 2,000 students and plans to expand to other parts of India.

“In the future, we want to develop more young achievers,” he said. “It’s our goal to dominate in India in chess.”

In Chennai, family support also plays a major role in nurturing talents, with parents investing their time and money to support the younger generation’s chess pursuit.

After introducing his daughters to the sport five years ago, Kannappan Dinesh has been busy helping them hone their skills and signing them up in local tournaments.

“Kids, if you notice, will get easily addicted to mobile or TV, but if you give them a chance to play chess they will easily perform well,” Dinesh told Arab News.

“For the parents here, it’s an investment. If you invest more time with your kids and invest in their talents, you will be rewarded. I think this attitude separates the parents in Tamil Nadu from other parts of India.”

With both daughters enrolled in Velammal, Dinesh credits the school for “providing all kinds of support.

“They take care of you in all aspects, and the infrastructure that they have supports the kids to grow and learn faster and perform better,” he said, adding that he was more motivated following Dommaraju’s historic win.

“After seeing Gukesh and all, even as parents we feel that (we need to) give our kids a chance.”

Dinesh’s 11-year-old daughter, Ayushi, is already aiming for the stars.

“I want to become a world champion like Gukesh because me and my sisters are passionate about chess,” she told Arab News.

“Gukesh is my true inspiration, and he teaches us that with the right mindset and dedication, we can achieve any goal.”

Nitin Narang, president of the Chess Federation of India, said that Chennai’s emergence as “a Makkah of chess” came from a foundation laid long ago.

“Chennai is often described as the Makkah of Indian chess and rightly so because there has been a lot of effort on the ground by lots of coaches and parents’ sacrifices,” Narang told Arab News.

“What you see today is something that has been going on in Chennai in the last three decades and these are the fruits we bear nationally.”


North Korea confirms that it dispatched troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine

North Korea confirms that it dispatched troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine
Updated 6 sec ago
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North Korea confirms that it dispatched troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine

North Korea confirms that it dispatched troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine
  • Kim Jong Un sent troops to help Russia “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers” of Kursk region
  • Ukraine earlier said 4,000 of at least 10,000 North Koreans troops fighting with Russian for had been killed

Kim Jong Un sent troops to help Russia “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers” of Kursk region

Ukraine earlier said 4,000 of at least 10,000 North Koreans troops fighting with Russian for had been killed


SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea confirmed Monday for the first time that it sent troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.
US, South Korean and Ukraine intelligence officials have said North Korea dispatched about 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia last fall. But North Korea hadn’t confirmed or denied its reported troop deployments to Russia until Monday.
Leader Kim Jong Un decided to send combat troops to Russia under a mutual defense treaty, the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party said in a statement.
It cited Kim as saying the deployment was meant to “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces.”
“They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honor of the motherland,” Kim said, according to the statement sent to state media.
In March, South Korea’s military said North Korea sent about 3,000 additional troops to Russia earlier this year, after its soldiers deployed on the Russian-Ukraine fronts suffered heavy casualties. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs assessed that around 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 4,000, though US estimates were lower at around 1,200.
In March, Kim expressed his unwavering support for Russia’s war in Ukraine during a meeting with a top Russian security official, Sergei Shoigu, in Pyongyang. State media reports said Kim and Shoigu reaffirmed their commitment to uphold the mutual defense treaty agreed upon last year. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko told Russian media the governments were discussing a potential visit by Kim to Moscow.
North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia as well. South Korea, the US and their partners worry that Russia could reward North Korea by transferring high-tech weapons technologies that can sharply enhance its nuclear weapons program. North Korea is expected to receive economic and other assistance from Russia as well.
North Korean soldiers are highly disciplined and well trained, but observers say they’ve become easy targets for drone and artillery attacks on Russian-Ukraine battlefields due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain.
Still, Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have assessed that the North Koreans are gaining crucial battlefield experience and have been key to Russia’s strategy of overwhelming Ukraine by throwing large numbers of soldiers into the battle for Kursk.


US says it struck 800 targets in Yemen, killed 100s of Houthis since March 15

US says it struck 800 targets in Yemen, killed 100s of Houthis since March 15
Updated 28 April 2025
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US says it struck 800 targets in Yemen, killed 100s of Houthis since March 15

US says it struck 800 targets in Yemen, killed 100s of Houthis since March 15
  • Washington’s forces have hammered the Houthis with air strikes since March 15, seeking to end the threat they pose to vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

WASHINGTON: The United States has hit more than 800 targets in Yemen since mid-March, killing hundreds of Houthi rebel fighters, including members of the group’s leadership, the US military said Sunday.
Washington’s forces have hammered the Houthis with near-daily air strikes since March 15 in an operation dubbed “Rough Rider,” seeking to end the threat they pose to vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and reestablish US regional “deterrence.”
“Since the start of Operation Rough Rider, USCENTCOM has struck over 800 targets. These strikes have killed hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders,” the military command responsible for the Middle East said in a statement that provided its most detailed accounting of the operation so far.
“The strikes have destroyed multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations,” CENTCOM said.
Despite the strikes, the Houthis — who control large swaths of Yemen and have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government since 2015 — have continued to claim attacks against both US vessels and Israel.
CENTCOM said that “while the Houthis have continued to attack our vessels, our operations have degraded the pace and effectiveness of their attacks. Ballistic missile launches have dropped by 69 percent. Additionally, attacks from one-way attack drones have decreased by 55 percent.”
“Iran undoubtedly continues to provide support to the Houthis. The Houthis can only continue to attack our forces with the backing of the Iranian regime,” the military command said.
“We will continue to ratchet up the pressure until the objective is met, which remains the restoration of freedom of navigation and American deterrence in the region,” it added.
As the United States announced details on the latest round of its campaign against the Houthis, the rebel-controlled Al-Masirah TV reported that US strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa had killed at least eight people and wounded others.
Al-Masirah TV also broadcast footage of the rubble of destroyed homes and cars, as well as blood stains on the ground, while rescuers collected what appeared to be human remains in white cloth.
Earlier Sunday, Houthi media said overnight strikes on Sanaa had killed two people and wounded several more.
The latest strikes brings the death toll since March 15 to 228, according to an AFP tally based on Houthi announcements.
The Houthi rebels began targeting shipping in late 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by a military campaign launched by Israel after a shock Hamas attack in October of that year.
Houthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic — forcing many companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa.
The United States first began conducting strikes against the Houthis under the Biden administration, and President Donald Trump has vowed that military action against the rebels will continue until they are no longer a threat to shipping.
The Trump administration has been forced onto the political defensive during the Yemen campaign by scandals stemming from senior officials’ use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes that took place on March 15.
Last month, The Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor-in-chief was mistakenly included in a Signal chat in which officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, discussed the strikes.
US media outlets then reported earlier this month that Hegseth had shared information on the same strikes in a second Signal group chat with various people who would not normally be involved in such discussions, including his wife.


US in touch with India and Pakistan; urges work toward ‘responsible solution’

US in touch with India and Pakistan; urges work toward ‘responsible solution’
Updated 28 April 2025
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US in touch with India and Pakistan; urges work toward ‘responsible solution’

US in touch with India and Pakistan; urges work toward ‘responsible solution’
  • India is an increasingly important US partner as Washington aims to counter China’s rising influence in Asia while Pakistan remains a US ally

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Sunday Washington was in touch with both India and Pakistan while urging them to work toward what it called a “responsible solution” as tensions have risen between the two Asian nations following a recent Islamist militant attack in Kashmir.
In public, the US government has expressed support for India after the attack but has not criticized Pakistan. India blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed over two dozen people. Pakistan denies responsibility and called for a neutral probe.
“This is an evolving situation and we are monitoring developments closely. We have been in touch with the governments of India and Pakistan at multiple levels,” a US State Department spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement.
“The United States encourages all parties to work together toward a responsible resolution,” the spokesperson added.
The State Department spokesperson also said Washington “stands with India and strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Pahalgam,” reiterating comments similar to recent ones made by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
India is an increasingly important US partner as Washington aims to counter China’s rising influence in Asia while Pakistan remains a US ally even as its importance for Washington has diminished after the 2021 US withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.
Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst and writer for the Foreign Policy magazine, said India is now a much closer US partner than Pakistan.
“This may worry Islamabad that if India retaliates militarily, the US may sympathize with its counter-terrorism imperatives and not try to stand in the way,” Kugelman told Reuters.
Kugelman also said that given Washington’s involvement and ongoing diplomatic efforts in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, the Trump administration is “dealing with a lot on its global plate” and may leave India and Pakistan on their own, at least in the early days of the tensions.
Hussain Haqqani, a former Pakistan ambassador to the US and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, also said that there seemed to be no US appetite to calm the situation at this moment.
“India has a longstanding grievance about terrorism emanating or supported from across border. Pakistan has a longstanding belief that India wants to dismember it. Both work themselves into a frenzy every few years. This time there is no US interest in calming things down,” Haqqani said.

ESCALATING TENSIONS
Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan who each rule over only parts of it and have previously fought wars over the Himalayan region.
Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to pursue the attackers to “the ends of the earth” and said that those who planned and carried out the Kashmir attack “will be punished beyond their imagination.” Calls have also grown from Indian politicians and others for military action against Pakistan.
After the attack, India and Pakistan unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines and India suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that regulates water-sharing from the Indus River and its tributaries.
The two sides have also exchanged fire across their de facto border after four years of relative calm.
A little-known militant group, Kashmir Resistance, claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.
Ned Price, a former US State Department official under the administration of former President Joe Biden, said that while the Trump administration was giving this issue the sensitivity it deserves, a perception that it would back India at any cost may escalate tensions further.
“The Trump Administration has made clear it wishes to deepen the US-India partnership — a laudable goal — but that it is willing to do so at almost any cost. If India feels that the Trump Administration will back it to the hilt no matter what, we could be in store for more escalation and more violence between these nuclear-armed neighbors,” Price said.


More than 100 immigrants detained at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado

More than 100 immigrants detained at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado
Updated 28 April 2025
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More than 100 immigrants detained at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado

More than 100 immigrants detained at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado

More than 100 immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally were taken into custody early Sunday following a federal raid at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, authorities said.
Video posted online by the Drug Enforcement Administration showed agents announcing their presence outside the building and ordering patrons to leave with their hands up. Other videos showed dozens of people fleeing the building through its entrance after federal agents smashed a window. Later, dozens of suspects were shown in handcuffs standing on a sidewalk waiting to be transported.
During his second stint as US president, Donald Trump ‘s unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement has pushed the limits of executive power, and he has clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. The crackdown has included detaining more than 1,000 international college students, some of whom have seen their legal status restored, at least temporarily. The policies have slowed immigration at the southern border to a relative trickle.
On Sunday in Colorado, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement took the club-going immigrants into custody, said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division.
“Colorado Springs is waking up to a safer community today,” he said. The city, Colorado’s second largest, lies about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of Denver.
More than 300 law enforcement officers and officials from multiple agencies responded to the nightclub, which had been under investigation for several months for alleged activities including drug trafficking, prostitution and “crimes of violence,” Pullen said at a news conference. Cocaine was among the drugs found, he said.
“When the cops showed up at the door, most of the drugs hit the floor,” Pullen said.
An undisclosed number of guns were seized, he said.
“Nothing good ever happens after 3 a.m.,” the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division posted on the social platform X.
Pullen estimated more than 200 people were inside the nightclub. Also among those detained were a dozen active-duty military members who either were patrons or working as armed security. Some patrons were arrested on undisclosed outstanding warrants, Pullen said.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X that “as we approach his 100 days in office @POTUS Trump’s directive to make America safe again is achieving results!”
Pullen did not specify the countries where the detained immigrants were from.
Earlier this month a federal judge in Colorado temporarily blocked deportations of immigrants who face possible removal under Trump’s invocation of an 18th century law known as the Alien Enemies Act.


Zelensky says Ukraine not kicked out of Russia’s Kursk

Zelensky says Ukraine not kicked out of Russia’s Kursk
Updated 28 April 2025
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Zelensky says Ukraine not kicked out of Russia’s Kursk

Zelensky says Ukraine not kicked out of Russia’s Kursk
  • “The situation on the front lines and the actual activities of the Russian army prove that the current pressure on Russia to end this war is not enough,” Zelensky says

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday Ukraine’s army was still fighting in Russia’s Kursk despite Moscow claiming the “liberation” of its western region, as Washington signalled a “critical week” ahead for negotiations.
Kyiv had hoped it could use land in the Kursk region as a bargaining chip in future peace talks with Russia, which has seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine since launching its offensive in February 2022.
“Our military continues to perform tasks in the Kursk and Belgorod regions — we are maintaining our presence on Russian territory,” he said in his evening address Sunday.
In a statement earlier Sunday, he conceded that the situation remained difficult in many areas including Kursk.
Russia said on Saturday it had captured Gornal, the last settlement under Ukrainian control in its border Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a shock offensive in August 2024.
Yet hours later Ukraine’s army dismissed Russia’s claim as “propaganda tricks.”
Several Russian military bloggers who closely monitor the conflict also said fighting was still ongoing around the forests on the border between Russia and Ukraine.
And a local Russian army commander in Kursk said the army was still conducting operations in the region, according to a state TV broadcast aired on Sunday.
“The situation on the front lines and the actual activities of the Russian army prove that the current pressure on Russia to end this war is not enough,” Zelensky said Sunday.
He called for increased pressure on Russia to create more opportunities for “real diplomacy.”
On Saturday, Zelensky discussed a potential ceasefire with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican.
After their brief talk in St. Peter’s Basilica, Trump cast doubt over whether Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted an end to the war, which has devastated swathes of eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people.
The following night, Russia launched drone and missile attacks, killing four people in regions across eastern Ukraine and wounding more than a dozen.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed the importance of the coming week.
“We’re close, but we’re not close enough” to a deal to halt the fighting, Rubio told broadcaster NBC on Sunday. “I think this is going to be a very critical week.”
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Sunday Ukraine should not agree to all territorial concessions to Russia reportedly set out in the deal proposed by Trump.
“Ukraine has, of course, known for some time that a sustainable, credible ceasefire or peace agreement may involve territorial concessions,” he told broadcaster ARD.
“But these will certainly not go... as far as they do in the latest proposal from the US president,” Pistorius said.
Washington has not revealed details of its peace plan, but has suggested freezing the front line and accepting Russian control of Crimea in exchange for peace.
When he claimed that Russia had recaptured all of Kursk from Ukraine, Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov praised the “heroism” of the North Korean soldiers who fought for Russia in the campaign.
It was the first time Moscow had admitted their participation in the conflict.
In August 2024, the Ukrainian army entered Kursk in an unprecedented counter-offensive on Russian soil. Among other gains, they seized a pumping station through which Russian gas used to flow to Europe.
Since then, Moscow has forced Kyiv’s soldiers onto the defensive, gradually recapturing much of the region.
After Ukraine was temporarily deprived of key US intelligence in March 2025, Russia redoubled its efforts, including through a surprise covert operation using an underground gas pipeline, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Russia has said that after Kursk’s recapture it will keep advancing in the four Ukrainian regions it claimed to have annexed in 2022.
Moscow was also planning to create a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s Sumy region, which borders Russia, said Gerasimov.
Russia holds about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014.