India continued its upward movement by joining France as the No.1 ranked chess nation in terms of FIDE rated players.
India rose to 35200, the same as France, the leader for over ten years and the Asian country is expected to surge ahead of the French number next week.
About four decades back, India had just Manuel Aaron on the rating list. His name was the first entry in the rating list for many decades but things changed when Viswanathan Anand burst onto the scene.
Since, Anand won the World Junior in 1987 and then went on to became World Champion in Tehran 2000, the numbers tended to grow sharply. More players took to the game in the summer of 2001 and the progress kept growing.
Two years back, India overtook the Germans and the Russians in the rating list. Earlier this year, the Indians went past Spain.
Now, when experts were expecting India to get the better of France around March 2014, this sudden surge in the chess activity related to the world championship has helped India go past or equal France in October.
"It is all team effort," said V Hariharan, Honorary Secretary of the All India Chess Federation.
"This is great news," said Bharat Singh, CEO of the AICF.
DV Sundar, Vice President of FIDE was delighted about the timing of this achievement as India is making the final touches to the organising of the Anand vs Carlsen match from November 7-28.
