In short, Indian chess widened its horizon from the singular exploits of Anand and showed signs that it was being spread to even the remotest corners of the country.

Anand may have lost his world title match to Anatoly Karpov of Russia in Lausanne in January. But since then, he achieved a chess professional's dream of lifting the Linares title.

In terms of tournament success, the Linares performance in March was Anand's best in his 10-year career. The victory was precious for the Indian as it came from a field which included Garry Kasparov and the cream of world chess.

Anand also scaled a new high as he won the Chess Oscar, the prestigious award that had long been the monopoly of the Russians after Fischer era.

Kunte (Pune) and Krishnan Sasikiran (Chennai)improved their ratings and barged into the Indian Olympiad team. For Kunte, the first half of the year was memorable as he won the Indian Independence Grandmasters tournament at Kozhikode in March. The success also gave him his second Grandmaster norm. Sasikiran was also in form at Kozhikode, finishing third.

Kunte and Sasikiran were part of the Indian Olympiad team in Elista in September. Sasikiran, who had also won a GM norm from London, was in terrific form in the biennial Olympiad, contributing towards the Indian points tally. He was in the running for a medal on the fourth board and narrowly missed out. Sasikiran's brilliance helped India do justice to their seeding this time after three dismal seasons in the Olympiad from 1992-96.

Gujarat's Bakre enjoyed a fruitful year as he won the Asian junior title in Rasht in May and followed it up with the World Youth (under-25) title in Moscow in June. The Asian junior title also gave him his International Master title.

Among the women, the vastly matured11-year-old Humpy of Andhra Pradesh promises to be India's best bet in the future. Though Vijayalakshmi Subburaman, with two WGM norms, is close to becoming India's first-ever Woman Grandmaster, Humpy is already in the top bracket having scalped many top players in the junior circuit. She won the under-12 World title in Spain, her second in the age-group category after her under-10 title last year in Cannes.

Humpy also became the youngest player to qualify for the National Women's A from the Chennai National Women B this month.

The Indian women finished 15th in the Elista Olympiad which was only the second-best performance from our national team after the ninth place finish in 1982. This, with three of the four players in the junior bracket (Vijayalakshmi, Pallavi Shah, Swati Ghate), is more creditable than the ninth place in 1982 as then the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were not divided and so the competition was not as good as it was this time.