Latest News :- The Indian men's and women's teams created a historic record by winning gold medals in the recently concluded 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary. Chennai's D. Gukesh and Praggnananda were in the Indian men's team and Vaishali was in the women's team. Srinath Narayanan of Tamil Nadu was the captain of the men's team and Arjun Kalyan was the coach of the women's team.

In this, D. Gukesh is studying in Velammal Vidyalaya School, Upper Aynambakkam and Praganananda Mukappar is studying in Velammal School. The other 3 are alumni of Velammal School. In such a situation, yesterday an appreciation ceremony was organized for all these 5 people by Velammal Nexus School at Velammal Hall in Nolampur, Chennai. Gukesh, Pragananand, Vaishali were awarded Rs 10 lakh each and Srinath Narayanan and Arjun Kalyan were awarded Rs 5 lakh each i.e. a total of Rs 40 lakh. It was presented by Velammal School Principal MVM Vel Mohan and Vice Principal Sriram.

Gukesh's mother Padma, Pragyanand, Vaishali's parents Ramesh-Nagalakshmi, Arjun Kalyan's parents Saravana Prakash-Veenu, Srinath Narayanan's parents Narayanan-Prasanna were honored at the function. It was heart-touching to see the players garland and drape their parents on the ceremony stage. In the programme, chess boards were given to 1000 government school and disabled students.