Aaron,Manuel, IM Rating : 2315 Born 30 December 1935. India's first IM and first Arjuna Awardee. Also an International Arbiter. Became IM in 1961. Had been secretary of AICF twice. Now serving as General Secretary of TNSCA for the second time. Retired from Indian Bank in 1995. Aarthie Ramaswamy, WGM Rating : 2239 Born on 20 June 1981. Prolific winner of National Championships. World Under 18 Girls Champion in 1999. Became WGM in 2003. A charming person, Aarthie is a role model for all youngsters. Anand Vishwanathan, GM Rating : 2803 Born on 11 December 1969. The Pride of Indian Chess. india's first Grandmaster, first Asian Junior Champion and 15th World Chess Champion. The nice guy of International Chess. G.B.Prakash, IM Rating : 2403 Born on 15 Mar 1972. Has completed three GM norms and is waiting for his rating to climb to 2500 to clinch his GM title. He is the elder brother of R.B.Ramesh. J.Deepan Chakkavarhty, IM Rating : 2501 Born on 3 June 1987. Hails form Madurai Prolific winner of tournaments. won the Asian Junior Championship at Colombo in 2002 to become an IM. A genial personality. K.Murugan, IM Rating : 2370 Born on 25 July 1964. Product of Chidambaram. A solid stable player. Became in in 1988 at the National A at Nayveli. Has represented India, TN, NLC at the Chess Olympiad. National Team Championships, etc. Senior Sports Officer at Neyveli Lignite Corporation Sports Control Board. K.Sasikiran, GM Rating : 2692 Born on 7 January 1981. Im at 17 GM at 19 Prolific winner of International Opens. India's second super GM after V.Anand Man of few words but great deeds over the chess board. Konguvel Ponnusamy, IM Rating : 2404 Born on 28 August 1973 Hails from Salem. An enginer by profession. Became National Champion and IM in 1995.Quiet and Goodricke. Koshy Verghese, IM Rating : 2323 Born on 3 October 1958. Originally from Kerala, he played many years for Bihar working for Tatas. Became an IM from the Zonal Tournament at Isfahan, Iran in 1993. Now lives in Chennai. Works for ONGC M.Kasturi, WIM Rating : 2106 Born on 20 May 1987. A Product of Madurai, She surprisingly won the Asian Junior Girls Chess Championship at Tehran in 2002. Became a Woman International Master. She has consistently finished high in many National Championships. M.R.Venkatesh, IM Rating : 2479 Born on 20 May 1985. A Player who has come up the hard way with limited family resources. Won the National Junior in 2002. Became IM in January 2004. He works for Bharat Petroleum. M.Shyam Sundar, IM Rating : 2302 Born on 28 Feb 1992 at Vellore, He became IM at the age of 14 in Asian Junior Chess Championship 2006 at Delhi. He is the youngest and 20th International Master from Tamilnadu. N.Sudhakar Babu, IM Rating : 2321 Born on 15 December 1965.A native of Dhamapuri District , he played chess for Tamilnadu, then Karnataka and then Madhya Pradesh. When he joined in Indian Bank, he came back to Tamilnadu and plays for Indian Bank and Tamilnadu. Became an IM in 1992 at the National A Championship at Patna. P.Mageshchandran, GM Rating : 2500 Born on 10 August 1983. Product of Madurai. Has won the National U 14 18 19 Championships. Now in the University of Texas, USA for higher studies. Won the Asian Junior Championship in 2003 at Colombo. He won the UTD Invitational GM Closed TOurnament at Dallas on Dec 14 2005. P.Mithrakanth, IM Rating : 2297 Born on 19 June 1961. Product of Coimbatore. A brilliant attacking player. Became IM at the Indian Bank Videocon Tournament in 1994. Won the Common Wealth Championship at Calcutta. Works for Neyveli Lignite Corporation. R.B.Ramesh, GM Rating : 2507 Born on 24 April 1976. WOn the 2002 British Championship works for Indian Oil Corporation. Many good things happened to him in 2003.That year he won a couple of tournaments to become a Grand Master R.Balasubramaniun, IM Rating : 2354 Player from Southern Railway R.R.Laxman, IM Rating : 2390 Born on 25 Feb 1983. Exceptionally talented he was able to mentally perform huge mathematical calculations in seconds, whwn he was a child. Got three IM norms by going through the grind of International Opens, he got title in July 2004. Ravishekhar Raja, IM Rating : 2380 Born on 17 September 1954. A most charismatic Indian IM. Won the NAtional A in 1976 and 1979. Played in National A from 1975 to 1990. Always among Top Six. Played for the country at all the Chess Olympiads from 1980 to 1990. A good speaker and now a celebrated chess trainer, Was Sports Officer in Coimbatore's Lakshmi Mills till 1993. Lives in Bangalore Coaching and Creating several age-limited national champions. S.Arun Prasad, IM Rating : 2433 Born on 21 April 1988. Hails from Salem has the unique distinction of winning two Asian Gold Medals in one Calendar year. First he won the Asian Under 16 gold medal in April 2004 at Tehran, Eight months later he won the Asian Junior Gold Medal at Bikaner to become an International Master. S.Meenakshi, WGM Rating : 2282 Born on 24 October 1981. YOunger sisiter of WGM Vijayalakshmi.She got WIm Title from the 2000 Olympiad. Became a WGM in January 2004. Won the Asian Zonal at Dhaka in 2003. A very quiet Person. S.Poobesh Anand, IM Rating : 2416 Born on 22 February 1985 He is from Madurai now living in Chennai. He got his IM title from the Asian Junior Championship from Colombo in 2003. S.Vijayalakshmi, WGM Rating : 2472 Born on 25 March 1979. Winner of Several National Championships and Awards, has won the National Women A Six times. Silver medals in two consecutive Chess Olympiads. First WGM of India and the first indian Female to get the IM title. Saritha Reddy, WIM Rating : 2218 Born on 10 June 1972. Won the National Subjunior Girls Chess Championship consecutively in 1985, 86, 87. In 1987 she won the National Women Championship. She became a WIM at the Women's Zonal Tournament at Doha, Qatar in 1990. Sundararajan Kidambi, IM Rating : 2472 Born on August 1982. Won the National Junior Championship twice, in 19999 as well as in 2002. Training partner of K.Sasikiran. Got all of his Im norms from Europe. T.N.Parameswaran, IM Rating : 2341 Born on 14 Nov 1955. Won IM title by going through the grind of International Tournaments in the Eighties. WOn the National Championship in 1979 and again in 1996. T.S.Ravi, IM Rating : 2346 Born on 19 May 1971. The quietest IM in the country. He and V.Anand were discovered at about at the same time in Madras. He worked for the Indian Bank but is now with Indian Oil. V. Saravanan, IM Rating : 2383 Born on 3 June 1971. A product of Coimbatore. Made two IM norms from Bangladesh and one from Goodricke, Calcutta. Became IM in 1996. He was working for Indian Bank. Now works for Bharat Petroleum. V.Ravikumar, IM Rating : 2350 Born on 26 December 1959. India's second IM. Won the Asian Junior at Tehran in 1978 to become an IM. Author of quite a few chess books. Works as a reputed chess trainer in Dubai. Y.Prathibha, WIM Rating : 2214 Born on 4 January 1984 she won the Asian Junior Girls Chess Championships at Colombo in 2003 to become a WIM . She had finished high in many National Championships without taking the title