http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/Visually-Challenged-Players-Prove-Their-Mettle-on-the-Chess-Board/2015/08/24/article2989597.ece CHENNAI: A farmer’s son from a remote village near Sathankulam in Tutikorin district won the state-level chess tournament for visually challenged children organised by Nethrodaya, a self-help institution, recently.
Among the participants was Jeremiah Jeparaj from Karungadal panchayat, located 45 kms away from Tuticorin city who travelled all the way to Chennai to participate in the chess tournament. He remained undefeated in all the six rounds and emerged as the winner among hundreds of other visually challenged chess players. His college friends who had raised money to support his dream of becoming a national-level chess champion had tears of joy when Jeremiah received the winning trophy from the Tamil Nadu Sports Development S Sundararaj. Jeremiah is currently pursuing his third year B A History course at St John’s College, Tirunelveli. He is also represented his district three times at the state-level cricket tournaments conducted by the Tamil Nadu government. After completing his UG, he plans to pursue a teacher training course but also continue his sports aspirations. Founder trustee of Nethrodaya, C Govindakrishnan said that out of the 1,27,405 visually challenged people in the state, more than 70,000 are from villages and unfortunately they are not provided with a platform to showcase their sporting ability. This competition aimed at providing recognition to players from rural Tamil Nadu through state-level and national-level chess competitions, he added. S Sivaraman, a class 12 student from St Louis Institute for the Deaf and Blind won the runners up title. This multi-talented champ from Tiruvarur apart from playing chess, plays volley ball and is an athlete and a violinist. S Karthick, from a village located 12 kilometres from Vanavasi in Salem won the third place. He moved to Chennai along with his brother Damodharan who is also visually challenged as there were no schools in Salem for special schools after class eight. His father who is also visually challenged, is a handweaver and saves money to visit his sons once in three months. Karthick is presently a student of Government Higher Secondary School for the Blind in Ponnamalle. While less than 10 out of 110 who participated in the chess competition were girls, M Shanthi, a house wife had brought her daughter M Pavithra all the way from Tiruchy. Pavithra, daughter of Muruganantham, a fitter working in Dalmia Cement Factory in Tiruchy had developed an interest in her for the game right from childhood. Once her mother Shanthi identified this, she decided to take her to chess competitions held at different parts of the state. “Despite several financial constraints, I am ready to do whatever I can to support my daughter’s dream, not only in chess but also education,” Shanthi told City Express. Govindakrishnan added that this initiative tried to sensitise the society that visually challenged can play chess on par with the sighted players. They need no relaxation on rules except for the specially designed chess boards. Higher education Secretary Apoorva and Madras High Court Justice Raja attended the inaugural fun -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
