President Draupadi Murmu honored chess players Divya Deshmukh and Vidit Gujrathi with the Arjuna Award for the year 2025 at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday, November 13. Both the players received this honor for their excellent performance in international chess competitions. Divya has created history by winning the Women's Chess World Cup. At the same time, Vidit has qualified for the 2024 Candidates Tournament by winning the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament in 2023.
Both players were part of India's gold medal-winning teams at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Divya was in the Indian women's team, while Vidit played for the men's team. With this achievement, Arjuna Award has become another big success in the career of both of them.
Divya Deshmukh: First Indian to win the Women's World Cup
20 year old Divya Deshmukh is a resident of Nagpur. She is the fourth woman Grandmaster of India. The year 2024 was special for his career. She won the World Junior Girls Chess Championship title. In the same year, she also won the gold medal with the Indian women's team in the Chess Olympiad held in Budapest. He also won individual gold while playing on Board-3.
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In the year 2025, Divya won the FIDE Women's Chess World Cup in Batumi, Georgia. In the final, she faced experienced Indian player Koneru Humpy. Divya won the title by defeating Hampi in tiebreak. With this she became the first Indian player to win the Women's World Cup. After this victory he also got the title of Grandmaster.
Vidit Gujarathi: Became Grandmaster at the age of 18
Born in Nashik, Maharashtra, Vidit Gujarathi's full name is Vidit Santosh Gujarathi. He made his mark in chess at an early age. In 2008, he won the Under-14 World Youth Chess Championship. In 2013, at the age of 18, he became a Grandmaster. He is the 30th Grandmaster of India.
Vidit's biggest career achievements include winning the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament. With this victory he secured a place in the 2024 Candidates Tournament. This tournament decides the challenger for the World Championship. In this tournament held in Toronto, Canada, Vidit finished sixth among eight players. He had defeated the world's leading player Hikaru Nakamura in both the matches.
Vidit was part of the Indian men's chess team at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou. The team had won the silver medal. After this, the Indian men's team won the gold medal in the 45th Chess Olympiad held in Budapest in 2024. Vidit was included in this team. Earlier, he had also captained the Indian team in the 2020 Online Chess Olympiad. India and Russia were declared joint winners in that tournament.