Chess

Second Indian (after Anand) to cross 2800 Elo rating.

Youngest undisputed World Chess Champion (2024) at age 18.

Women's World Rapid Champion in 2019 and 2024.

World Cup finalist and one of the youngest grandmasters ever.

Grandmaster and winner of the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament — the first Indian woman to do so — which earned her the right to challenge for the Women's World Chess Championship. Sister of Praggnanandhaa.

Grandmaster; Chess Olympiad gold medallist with India in 2024.

Five-time World Chess Champion; first Indian grandmaster.

Girish Arun Koushik (born August 31, 1997) is an Indian chess grandmaster from Karnataka. He won the World Youth Chess Championship under-10 in 2006. He has also been a medalist in the Asian Youth Chess Championships under 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

Aarav Dengla (born July 25, 2009) is an American and Indian chess player. He is India's 93rd grandmaster and the third from Mumbai, Maharashtra. His classical live rating stands at 2506.

Aaron Reeve Mendes is a Canadian chess player.

Aarthie Ramaswamy (born 28 June 1981) is an Indian chess player. She was awarded the title Woman Grandmaster (WGM) by FIDE in 2003. In 1993, Ramaswamy won the India under-12 girls championship.

Aaryan Varshney is an Indian chess grandmaster.

Abhijeet Gupta (born 16 October 1989) is an Indian chess player with the title of Grandmaster (GM). Gupta is the first player to win the Commonwealth Chess Championship five times. He completed his early education from A's Steward Senior Secondary School, Bhilwara before embarking upon his career as a chess player.

Abhijit Kunte (born 3 March 1977) is an Indian chess player from Pune who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster.

Abhimanyu Samir Puranik (Marathi: अभिमन्यु पुराणिक; born 11 February 2000, Mumbai) is an Indian chess grandmaster (GM, 2017).

Aditya Mittal is an Indian chess grandmaster.

Aditya Sachin Samant (born 2006) is an Indian chess grandmaster.

Akash Ganesan (born 1 October 1996) is an Indian chess grandmaster and former national champion. He currently holds national record in chess for being Youngest National Chess Champion at the age of 16 years and 14 days. 5 score favoring the Italian-American.

Akshat Chandra (born May 28, 1999) is an American chess player. He started playing Chess during a visit to India in 2009 when he was nine years old. In 2015, he won the US National K-12 Championship and was also the US Junior Champion, the first time both titles were held by the same person in a single year.

Akshayraj Kore (born 1 September 1988), is an Indian chess player and a Grandmaster. In 2006, he became Maharashtra's youngest International Master at the time after he won the Invitational IM Norm Round Robin Chess Tournament in Luhansk, Ukraine. In February 2013, he became India's 32nd Grandmaster.

Anish Sarkar (born 26 January 2021) is an Indian chess player. He is the world's second youngest FIDE rated player. In 2024, Sarkar became the youngest to be awarded the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, aged 3.

Ankit Rajpara (born 27 August 1994) is India's 36th chess Grandmaster and a chess prodigy from Gujarat. He started playing chess at the age of 8 and achieved great successes at National Junior chess tournaments.

Anupama Gokhale (born Anupama Abhyankar; 17 May 1969) is an Indian chess player. She won the Indian Women's Championship five times (1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1997) and the Asian Women's Championship twice (1985 and 1987). In 1985 she was also joint winner, with Malaysian player Audrey Wong, of the Asian Junior Girls' Championship in Adelaide.

Anurag Mhamal is an Indian chess grandmaster.

Arghyadip Das is an Indian chess player.

Arjun Kalyan (born 17 June 2002), is an Indian chess player. He has the title of Grandmaster, which FIDE awarded him in April 2021.

Chirukandath Manoj Arjun Vishnuvardhan (born 21 August 1990), generally known as Arjun Vishnuvardhan, is an Indian chess player and International Master in the United States of America. At his 15 years of age, in May 2006, he became the National Game-60 Chess Champion of the United States, by beating International Master Edward W. Formanek.

Aronyak Ghosh (born 2003) is an Indian chess player who holds the title of Grandmaster.

Aryan Chopra (born 10 December 2001) is an Indian chess prodigy who became a grandmaster (GM) in 2016, at the age of 14 years, 9 months and 3 days. The title was officially awarded by FIDE in 2017. He became the second youngest Indian to become Grandmaster, after Parimarjan Negi.

Ashwin Kanchanbhai Makwana (born 1984) is an Indian para chess player from Gujarat. The visually challenged chess player was selected for the Indian team that took part in the 2022 Asian Para Games, Hangzhou, China. He won the Men's Team Rapid VI-B1 gold medal on 28 October 2023 along with Darpan Inani and Soundarya Pradhan.

Aswath Siva is an Indian chess player, International Master and grandmaster-elect. He will become the 98th Grandmaster from India.

Balaji Guttula (born 20 May 1979) is an Indian chess player holding FIDE Master and FIDE Trainer title. He achieved his peak rating of 2320 in 2005 and was conferred with the title of FIDE Master in 2009. He has coached and mentored many students like Kush Bhagat, Shiven Khosla, and Suhaani Lohia in a coaching career spanning over two decades.

Kush Bhagat (born 11 June 2009) is an Indian chess player with an International FIDE Rating. His current and the peak rating is 2324. He is a Student at South Mumbai Chess Academy, trained by Balaji Guttula.

Bhagyashree Thipsay (née Sathe; born 4 August 1961) is an Indian chess player holding the title of Woman International Master (WIM). She won five times the Indian Women's Championship (1985, 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1994) and the Asian Women's Championship in 1991. In 1984 she was joint winner with Vasanti Unni of the British Ladies' Championship.

Bhakti Kulkarni (born 19 May 1992) is an Indian chess player. She received the FIDE titles of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) in 2012 and International Master (IM) in 2019. She won the women's edition of National Premier Chess Championship in both 2018 and 2019 consecutively.

Bharath Subramaniyam Harishankkar (born 17 October 2007) is an Indian chess grandmaster (GM).

Bodda Pratyusha (born 1997 in Tuni, East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh) is an Indian chess player. In 2012, she was the Indian girls' under-17 champion. In April 2015, she earned the Woman International Master (WIM) title.

Sandipan Chanda (born 13 August 1983) is a chess grandmaster hailing from the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) in the Indian state of West Bengal. He started playing at the age of 9 and became a grandmaster in 2003. 5/9, a half point ahead of Alexander Shabalov.

Aravindh Chithambaram Veerappan (born 11 September 1999) is an Indian chess grandmaster. He won the Indian chess championships twice, in 2018 and 2019.

Darpan Inani is a prolific blind Indian chess player and a Chartered Accountant from Vadodara. He won 2 gold medals - individual as well as team gold medal - at Para Asian Games held in China in October, 2023. He had a career peak FIDE elo rating of 2135, the highest ever elo rating to have been attained by any visually impaired player from India as of January, 2024.

Debashis Das is an Indian chess grandmaster.

Deep Sengupta (born 30 June 1988) is an Indian chess player. He is India's 22nd player to be awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE. Sengupta competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2017.

J. Deepan Chakkravarthy (born 3 June 1987) is an Indian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2006. Born in Madurai, Deepan Chakkravarthy won the Asian Junior Chess Championship in 2002.

Devaki V. Prasad (born 16 June 1962) is an Indian chess player who holds the title of International Master (IM). The title was awarded to him in 1986.

Dhyani Dave (born 21 August 1991 in Gujarat) is an Indian chess player who holds the FIDE title of Woman International Master. She has won gold medals at the Under 14 Asian Chess Championship and the Under 16 Commonwealth Chess Championship. She is a silver medalist at the Under 10 Asian Championship and the Under 12 Commonwealth Championship.

Dibyendu Barua (born 27 October 1966) is an Indian chess grandmaster. He is a three-time Indian Chess Champion. He was the second Indian chess player, after Viswanathan Anand, second Bengali after Niaz Murshed, and third South Asian after Niaz and Anand to achieve the title of chess grandmaster.

Diptayan Ghosh (born 10 August, 1998) is a chess player from Kolkata, India. He qualified as a grandmaster at the age of 17 after achieving his third and final norm required for the title at the HDBank International Chess Open Tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in March 2016. Ghosh won the gold medal at the Asian Youth Chess Championships in the Under 10 section in 2008 and the Under 12 in 2009.

On 8 September 2026 the Maharashtra Cabinet approved a revised policy for the 5 per cent parallel reservation for meritorious sportspersons in direct recruitment in state government and semi-government bodies. Sports included in at least three consecutive Summer Olympic Games after 2005 qualify, and Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, Chess, Mallakhamb and Cricket have been added as regional sports. Under the revised policy, sports certificates must be verified through a digital Sports E-Certificate system within three months, and earlier government resolutions on the quota were rescinded.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), a Government of India enterprise, gives monthly scholarships to economically weaker young sportspersons who have the potential to excel in sport, in games including badminton, boxing, wrestling, kabaddi, chess, athletics and para sports. This is a public-sector company scheme, not a government department scheme. A scholarship is awarded for one year and can be extended up to two years based on annual performance. The number of scholarships is fixed game by game; for the 2025-26 round, for example, badminton had 6 (3 for men and 3 for women) and kabaddi had 20.

NHPC Limited, a Government of India enterprise, offers a sports scholarship to promising young players aged 14 to 19 years (14 to 24 years for para sports) in 16 games, to encourage their talent and build a talent pool during their formative years of education. This is a public-sector company scheme, not a government department scheme. Up to 32 scholarships are provided, two in each game, in two categories, Elite Scholar and Scholar, for a period of three years.

Under instructions of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), central government ministries and departments can directly recruit meritorious sportspersons to Group C posts (including erstwhile Group D) that are filled by direct recruitment, in relaxation of the normal recruitment procedure. The list of qualifying sports has 65 disciplines (63 listed in 2020, with Tennis Ball Cricket added in January 2021 and Yogasana in June 2022). Kudo, Karate, Taekwondo, Golf, Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, Badminton, Cricket and Tennis are among them. Railways and a few scientific and atomic-energy services follow separate rules.