Girish Kaushik wins National Under 9

Having brought laurels of a rare kind by
winning the Under-10 world chess title at the championship conducted
in Georgia, Russia, recently, city's chess wizard Girish A. Koushik
has annexed the National Under-9 Chess title at the National
championships just concluded at Solapur in Maharashtra.

Studying in fourth standard at St. Thomas School, Vishweswaranagar
here, Girish competed along with 180 players from across the country.
He is the son of Arun V. Koushik, who is also his coach and Lakshmi,
residents of Vidyaranyapuram. The latest crown adorning the young
chess prodigy from our city is one among the innumerable titles in his
bag earned in championships at district State and national levels.

Shantha Giri, grandmother of Girish, has recalled with gratefulness
the generous help from many philanthropists extended to him for
meeting expenses of travel to distant venues of tournaments. She also
thanked Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Swamiji for helping him with funds
at the time of his participation in the latest championship at
Sholapur, apart from Dr. R. Sridhar, Dr. Narendra, Dr. Sowjanya,
Ramachandra of Gopika Agarbathis and engineers of Mysore Urban
Development Authority.

She is however worried about how to raise money for enabling Girish to
meet the expenses of travel to Haryana for taking part in the ensuing
national-level chess championship on Dec. 25. Girish is also in need
of a laptop for raising the level of his play in order to be
competitive and to stay at world class level.