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 An International Master Chess Champion

Sriram Jha

Sriram Jha (centre) with J V Ravichandran (left)

J.V.Ravichandran introduces Sriram Jha as an open minded, gifted, expressive and articulate personality. Sriram is one of the few who has been able to weather the highly politicised atmosphere created by the Delhi Chess Association in Delhi and hence, his becoming an International Master of chess is doubly commendable. Due to quite a few GM category tournaments in the offing in the coming months, Sriram could not be asked many questions but just the one important one, which he has candidly answered.

JVR:

Why do you think there is such a dearth of open championships or any level championships in Delhi? Because of such a lacklustre attention towards chess, Delhi has been suffering to the extent that it has taken nearly a decade (after Tamil Nadu's first IM) to produce an IM in the form of you. Please comment candidly.

Sriram Jha answers:

Chess in Delhi has long suffered due to infighting and corruption in our Delhi Chess Association. Being the capital of the country, there is no reason why sponsors would not come to support chess, when they are sponsoring it elsewhere in the country, but they need to be approached, professionally and properly, which. I feel, has not been done by the association. They are busy fighting amongst themselves and promotion of chess is the last thing on their mind. Very recently Mr Bharat Singh has taken over as the secretary of DCA, and he being a dynamic man and a chess lover, I hope that things would improve for the better of chess in Delhi.

Regarding me being the first IM from Delhi, all I can say is that I did not lose hope when I did not get any support from the association or from elsewhere; I just kept trying to improve my chess and I got the title.

I know many talented chess players in Delhi who gave up chess as their career as they found no scope in it. But now things have drastically changed at the national level. If you are good at national level you can get a good job and many more incentives. Parents are now realising that chess can be taken as a career but there is more chess awareness in south rather then in north. This has always been the case and is likely to remain the same in the near future. Otherwise how else can you explain the fact that they have 15 IM`s and we have only one. But, I sincerely hope and wish that one day this trend will change and there would be many more IM`s and GM`s from north India and especially Delhi.

This is what I feel about the current chess situation in Delhi.