Indian Chess Team From Pune Jail Wins Bronze At Intercontinental Meet; Odisha’s Padmini Among Coaches

Pune: A chess team from Yerawada prison here clinched bronze medal at the Intercontinental ‘Chess for Freedom’ Online Championship for Prisoners, organized by FIDE, the world chess federation.

It was the first time that Indian prison teams competed in this tournament against 85 teams from 46 countries, reported PTI.

The Indian teams were groomed and trained under Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) ‘Parivartan – Prison to Pride’ initiative.

“Under this outreach, IOC is facilitating training programmes in various sports such as chess, basketball, badminton, volleyball and carrom across prisons in India to help improve the physical and mental well-being of inmates,” IOC stated.

IOC, in association with All India Chess Federation, selected the Indian teams for the intercontinental championship through the inaugural ‘Parivartan – Prison to Pride Online Chess Championship’, in which teams from 20 Indian prisons took part.

Teams from Pune and Prayagraj prisons qualified for the Open championship, while teams from Tihar Jail made the grade in women’s and juvenile categories.

IOC’s praiseworthy initiative, launched on August 15, 2021, has so far covered 37 prisons across 20 states and 5 Union Territories, with over 1,750 inmates having received training in three phases.

Odisha’s top player Padmini Rout, an International Master and a Woman’s Grandmaster, is among the coaches.

Other coaches from IOC include Esha Karavade, Soumya Swaminathan, Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Abhijit Kunte in chess; Manjusha Kanwar (former national champion), Abhinn Shyam Gupta (Arjuna awardee), and S Arun Vishnu (former national champion) in badminton; Rushmi Chakravarthi (former national champion) in tennis; international players Yogesh Pardesi, Md Gufran, Kajal Kumari and Ramesh Babu in carrom.

Besides coaching facility, equipment and kits are provided to the participants.