Viswanathan Anand :

Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand an Indian Chess champion and the
current world champion, was born on 11th December 1969 in Chennai,
Tamil Nadu to Krishnamurthy Viswanatha and  Susheela. His father
Krishnamurthy, who is an retired General Manager, Southern Railways,
and mother Susheela, housewife is an chess/film/club aficionado and an
influential socialite. He has 2 siblings- a brother and a sister.

He gives all his credit for his chess play to his mother, who motivated him
so much that he started playing uner the age of 6. He described his start in
chess in a conversation with Susan Polgar who is a Hungarian-born American
chess player.

Anand did his schooling in Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai and holds a
degree in commerce from Loyola College, Chennai. When he is not playing
chess he enjoys pursuing his other hobbies of reading, swimming & listening to music.

His Great achievements:

Anand won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 for the first time after defeating Alexei Shirov in the final match held at Tehran.

In September 2007, he once again succeeded in becoming the World Champion by winning that year’s FIDE World Championship Tournament held in Mexico City.

In 2008, Anand was successful in defending his Championship title against
Kramnik in the World Chess Championship held in October in Bonn, Germany.

After such fine play resulting in consecutive successes, he became the first person to win the world championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament, and Match.

Anand is one of the four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list. He was at the top of the world rankings five out of six times, from April 2007 to July 2008. His reign since July 1996 in the top three spot ended in October 2008 as he got dropped out of the world top three ranking.

In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award. He is also the first reciver of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991?92. India’s highest sporting honour.