SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, June 7: Jharkhand has become a prominent force in national chess in just 22 years, while Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and other states required decades to establish their mark, especially in the field of arbitration.
For the first time, the highest four arbiters of Jharkhand were assigned to conduct the 13th KIIT International Chess Festival 2022 held at Bhubaneswar from May 22-29. Only host Odisha had more arbiters than Jharkhand.
Jayant Bhuyan, Neeraj Mishra, Vishal Kumar Minj and Chandan Kumar Prasad were the arbiters from Jharkhand.
At the same time, only one arbiter from Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal Bihar, Nagaland and Tripura was assigned by the national chess body to the Asian chess festival-2022.
Moreover, the All India Chess Federation has selected two arbiters of Jharkhand Dipak Kumar and Vishal Kumar Minj for officiating the Chess Olympiad to be held at Mahabalipuram (Chennai) Tamil Nadu from July 28 to August 10.
Dipak Kumar and Vishal Kumar Minj were called for four-day special training along with 90 arbiters of the country which was held at Mahabalipuram from May 28 to 31 for the Chess Olympiad.
Joint secretary of All Jharkhand Chess Association Ajay Kumar claimed that not today albeit in the future too Jharkhand would dominate as it hhas a a huge pool of international, FIDE, National and Senior National Arbiters to give service.
“At present Jharkhand has one International Arbiter (IA) Jayant Bhuyan from Jamshedpur and five FIDE arbiters Dipak Kumar (Ranchi), Prabhat Ranjan (Dhanbad), Vishal Kumar Minj, Chandan Kumar Prasad (Jamshedpur) and Aishwarya (Dhanbad) to keep the flag of the state flying at the national platform,” said Ajay Kumar.
Besides IA and FIDE, Jharkhand has more than a dozen National Arbiters (NA) and senior National Arbiters.
International Master Neeraj Mishra lead the tally of NA followed by Nishant Ketu (Koderma), Himanshu Chakraborty, Sucheta Chakraborty (both Ranchi), and Prabhunath Sahu (Garhwa).
IM Neeraj Mishra has achieved the FA norm but the official announcement has yet to be made. Sokin Pramanik Kundu (Jamshedpur), Priyanka Kumari (Dumka) Bikram Kumar (Saraikela) and Binod Sab (Dhanbad) are among the Senior NAs.
“Since Jharkhand arbiters have proved their mettle, they are now most sought for national and international tournaments,” said joint secretary Ajay Kumar.
Jayant Kumar has been officiating national and international tournaments since 1992. Dipak Kumar got FA norm in 2017. Besides national and international, Dipak has held two GM tournaments (Bhopal in 2020 and Delhi in 2019). Prabhat Ranjan of Dhanbad who got FA norm in 2017 has also the credit of holding several nationals including the All India Civil services tournament twice.
Neeraj 3rd IM in India to get FIDE norm
Jharkhand also got an achievement when its International Master (IM) Neeraj Mishra became the 3rd player in Indian chess history to get the FIDE arbiter norm.
First IM of the country Mauel Aaron of Maharashtra was the first to get the FIDE Arbiter norm and Raja Ravi Shekhar of Tamil Nadu was the second player. Now Jharkhand’s Neeraj has brought laurels to the state by achieving this milestone.
