Dr. K.M. Cherian and Dr. V.V. Bashi at the inauguration of the summit, in Chennai on Friday. | Photo Credit: R. Ravindran
Over 200 cardiac and cardiothoracic surgeons from across the country will take part in the three-day 8th International Aortic Summit 2018, that was inaugurated on Friday.
The summit is being organised by the Institute of Cardiac and Advanced Aortic Disorders (ICAAD) of SRM Institutes for Medical Science (SIMS).
K.M. Cherian, chairman of Dr. K.M. Cherian Heart Foundation, inaugurated the summit. He said that science and technology was progressing so fast that it was very difficult to keep up and that such workshops helped.
‘Need to upgrade’
Taking part in the inaugural session, Ravi Pachamoothoo, chairman, SIMS Hospital, said, “Technology is growing day by day and there is a need to upgrade ourselves.”
V.V. Bashi, director of ICAAD, said there were a large number of cases of aortic diseases to be treated in the country. “The disease pattern in our country is different. Take for instance, the size of the aorta. We need a lot of youngsters to do more work on the disease and analyse the patient population,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – November 24th, 2018
In general, plants of ornamental value are grown in gardens just to increase the aesthetic features of landscapes.
Mussaenda frondosa
Chennai :
In general, plants of ornamental value are grown in gardens just to increase the aesthetic features of landscapes. The ornamental features of the plants may not necessarily be flowers but could also be bright coloured foliage, curiously looking fruits, unusual forms and textures of barks. In all the above cases, the prime intention of the garden planner is to provide eye-pleasing designs to visitors.
In order to enhance the aesthetic values of the gardens/landscapes, our Indian horticulturists import numerous exotic species. However, the flip side to importing exotic species, often, is the sidelining of native, productive landscapes. Apparently, farmers in our country are spending lots money and energy in combating the spread of these invasive ‘imported beauties’. Therefore, it is inevitable for us to learn about the plant species that grow naturally and enhance natural landscapes.
This type of native ornamental plants are known as ‘wild beauties’. This is the right time for nature lovers to turn their attention towards familiarising and propagating our native plants. Interestingly, in addition, our native plants are useful as medicines, food and drinks, and some species are reported to positively alter human attitudes, behaviours and psychological responses.
Mussaenda frondosa L., which belongs to Rubiaceae is one such wild beauty that can be spotted even at a distance because of its shiny, large, leaf-like floral parts. The vernacular names Bellila (Kannada); Vellila (Malayalam); Velli Madandai and popular names in English, Flag Bush, White Lady reveal the beauty of this ornamental shrub. In Sanskrit, this is known as Shruvati.
This wild beauty also has several medicinal uses. Leaves and flowers are crushed and applied externally in case of wounds. The shiny leaf-like bracts is boiled in water, and the liquid is then used to cleanse hair. It is also used to treat jaundice. The juice of the plant is used to treat eye infections. In addition, the common plant’s — found to grow in moist deciduous to evergreen forests of Western Ghats — decoction of leaves are administered orally to get rid of intestinal worms.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Health / by Ganesh Babu NM / Express News Service / November 21st, 2018
Most primary schools in the State are run by local bodies. There are only 27 primary schools, including three in Erode district, directly under the government.
Erode :
A government primary school on Periyar Street here is perhaps the only one of its kind in the State: it is entirely English medium as parents want to enrol their children only in these classes. English medium classes were opened here eight years ago when the late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa allowed their parallel sections from the first standard. Since then, the demand has increased and gradually, it became a fully English medium.
The school, established 158 years ago, used to be the primary section of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School at PS Park, Erode. In 2001, it was made a separate school with a separate head. Most primary schools in the State are run by local bodies. In fact, there are only 27 primary schools, including three in Erode district, directly under the government. Of the three in the district, two are in the city and one in Bhavanisagar.
When the present headmaster, V S Muthuramasamy, took charge, its strength was 72, but now there are 310 students, more than 200 of them being girls. It has 10 teachers, all of whom are postgraduates; three of them, including the headmaster, have an MPhil degree. However, Plus Two with DTEd is the basic qualification for teachers of primary schools.
All classes from the first to the fifth standard have two sections, each with 25-30 students. So, the school has just enough number of teachers.
Good infrastructure
The school now has enough infrastructure, like any private school, to attract parents. Earlier, when it did not have enough of them, former MLA of Erode East, V C Chandrakumar (2011-16), granted Rs 33.50 lakh from his MLA fund to construct a new, well-furnished three-classroom building in place of the old tiled building. The present MLA, K S Thennarasu granted Rs 10 lakh to lay a proper floor and dig a new borewell.
The RMSA office in the school was shifted to the CEO’s Office and the building is now used to conduct classes. Using SSA and panchayat union funds, eight toilets and a noon-meal centre were constructed recently; a bicycle parking space was also created.
Erode West MLA K V Ramalingam, during a recent visit, agreed to help construct a compound wall with a good gate. With donations from the public, walls of all classrooms, both inside and outside, were painted with pictures of leaders, scientists, birds, animals, flowers, trees, alphabets, etc, to encourage children to learn about them. Also, panels with Tirukkurals written on them have been hung in the buildings.
English medium in govt schools will not harm Tamil
ERODE: “ALL parents want to put their kids in English medium classes. I can’t force them to enrol the children in Tamil medium. If I try to do that, they will go to other schools. And rules say admission
should not be refused to any child. Through parents’ choice, all classes here are now English medium. There is no Tamil medium class,” V S Muthuramsasmy, headmaster of the Government Primary School on Periyar Street in the city told Express.
“Having only English medium classes in the school is not wrong,” said Muthuramsasmy, who is also district secretary of the Tamil Nadu Aarambapalli Aasiriyar Koottani. “Parents are clamouring to see their children speak English. They send them to private schools, unmindful of the hefty fees, for it. If the government itself provides good English medium education, they will not spend so much money on private schools. In fact, only if this demand is met will the strength of government schools increase,” he added.
Opening LKG and UKG sections in all government schools will not affect Tamil, he said. All students have to learn Tamil as the first language. Besides, many in Tamil medium students who score high marks in Plus Two find higher studies, all of which is in English medium, difficult. A student learning in English from the primary level will find higher education easier.
As all the teachers here are postgraduates, there is no difficulty in conducting classes in English. The English reading and writing skills the school’s students are very good, said, teachers. Hearing some students – Saranya and Saravanan of the fourth standard and Dhanushka and Merlin of the fifth – read lessons from their English texts and explain the meaning in Tamil clearly, proved their claims. The books in English for other subjects were also easy.
In fact, the students find the Tamil textbooks harder. “Spoken English classes are conducted using CDs. So the children learn the pronunciation easily,” said Umamaheswari, a teacher. “The school also arranges free classes for karate and music. The teachers are paid from the school fund. ID cards and diaries also are given free of cost to all students. As private schools collect Rs 20-40,000 for the same education at the primary level, many parents prefer this school.
It is the main reason that our strength is growing every year. Our aim is to make the school first in the State in all aspects in the coming years,” she added. Attracted by the good high quality of education in this school, many parents pulled their children out of private schools and put them here. In fact, admissions in the nearby corporation, and even private, schools have come down because of this.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / November 20th, 2018
Gone are those days, when elders in the family, treated their child’s illness with vegetables.
Chennai :
Gone are those days, when elders in the family, treated their child’s illness with vegetables. It is believed that the disconnection from the traditional food culture has made the present generation unaware of the nutritional values in the native vegetables. Therefore, alternative medical practitioners through their campaigns at workshops and symposia on the native food system are attempting to bring awareness among people on the possibilities of curing several ailments just by putting them on a diet of native raw vegetables.
“From a vegetable vendor, you demand a ‘fresh’ bunch of mint or coriander leaves. But, is it not an irony that what you buy fresh is dead after you cook? While cooking is nothing but an act of ‘killing’ the nutrients of a vegetable, why should you prefer it to be bought fresh?” asks BK Arunprakaash, a vegetable consultant, who runs Yogeshwar Vegetable Clinic in Coimbatore.
Photo: U Rakesh Kumar
Arun, who treats diseases by prescribing appropriate diet patterns to his clients, points out that consuming raw vegetables provides a cure to several ailments. He displays a list of 12 different vegetables and the method of having each of them.“The banana, coconut and lemon, which we offer to the deities, are capable of bringing a change in a person’s behaviour.
I would say that our native vegetables have something more than nutrition. I have examined the impacts on a patient after making him consume raw native vegetables as brinjal and drumstick and the foreign ones like cauliflower and carrot. Then, I discovered that the former’s effect on the person was greater than that of the latter,” says Arun.
Citing a case study, he says, “A boy, who had been using offensive words in his language, gradually turned out to be polite after having raw snake gourd regularly.”Sixty-year-old Manivannan, a retired professor, and one of the clients of Arunprakaash says, “I was suffering from acute back and joint ache and I took certain allopathic medicines prescribed by doctors. However, they had only temporary effects on the disease. Later, when I consulted Arunprakaash at his clinic, he suggested that I have raw copra and vaazhaikaai (plantain) regularly. I followed the diet strictly, and now I am totally relieved of back and joint pains.”
Reminding the origin of the expression ‘Goodbye ‘as ‘God be with you’, a greeting of concern when a person takes leave of the other, Arun says, “In our society, many hardly know what is behind the custom of presenting a lemon to a person at the point when he sets out for a journey. During his travel, he may experience an unexpected physical hazard. At that point, let him have a full lemon with its peel. It saves his precious life. This is the truth behind the presenting of lemon.”
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by B. Meenakshi Sundaram / Express News Service / November 16th, 2018
‘One of her areas of interest was deep brain stimulation’
Asia’s first woman neurosurgeon, T.S. Kanaka, died in Chennai on Wednesday after a brief illness. She was 86.
Dr. Kanaka, who retired as professor of Neurosurgery, Institute of Neurology, Madras Medical College (MMC), in 1990, was known to have inspired many women to take to the field of neurosurgery in the country.
One of them was her niece, G. Vijaya, who presently heads the Department of Neurosurgery at Sri Narayani Hospital and Research Centre, Vellore.
“She was the third woman neurosurgeon in the whole world. She has inspired at least 75 to 80 women to become neurosurgeons in the country. As an 11-year-old child then, I started to look up to her and went on to become a neurosurgeon, the second in our family,” she said.
She also served as an army medical officer for two years during the India-China war.
“Her main aim after retirement from MMC was to serve the needy and poor. She wanted to treat the geriatric age group, and went on to establish a centre, Sri Santhana Krishna Padmavathi Health Care and Research Foundation in Chromepet with all her pension benefits,” she said.
One of her areas of interests was deep brain stimulation, Dr. Vijaya added.
K. Deiveegan, former head of department, Institute of Neurology, MMC, said she has done a lot of pioneering work in stereotactic surgery along with professors V. Balasubramanian and S. Kalyanaraman. Another important area of interest for her was cerebral palsy.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Tamil Nadu / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – November 16th, 2018
Dr. M.K. Sudhakar (right) and his collection of stamps. Photo: G. Krishnaswamy
Iyappanthangal physician has a collection of stamps of Indians honoured abroad
But for a stamp autographed by Mother Teresa, Dr. M.K. Sudhakar has got almost all stamps issued in her honour. The doctor has got a collection of Mother Teresa stamps issued by 80 countries which include Albania, Austria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bosnia, Cuba, France, Germany and Mongolia.
The philatelist is a general medicine practitioner residing in Iyappanthangal.
“Most of the stamps that I have collected can be themed as Indians honoured abroad. In addition to Mother Teresa’s stamps, I have stamps of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and M.S. Subbulakshmi issued by other countries. Around 150 countries have issued stamps in honour of Mahatma Gandhi. The recent addition was a stamp issued in North Korea,” says Sudhakar.
His collection of Tagore’s stamps are from Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Russia, Sweden and Mozambique.
He has preserved the stamps collected by his father as well.
“My father has collected stamps of Mahatma Gandhi. They have become crinkled with age. Preservation of stamps is a big challenge. I laminate them in oleophobic-coated sheets and have them filed in albums. I also preserve the pamphlets issued along with the stamps. They give key information about the personality,” says Sudhakar.
The other themes in his collection include Bharat Ratna awardees. The first day cover of Defense Research and Development Organisation autographed by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and stamps on Air India are also part of his collection.
“For me, stamp collection is a stress buster. I find the act of arranging them categorically so relaxing. In the process, you learn a lot. As I chose to collect stamps issued in honour of great people, I got to know more about important events in history,” says Sudhakar.
Sudhakar is an active member of South Indian Philatelic Association for Stamps.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by L. Kanthimathi / November 16th, 2018
Toda men walking to their village in Udhagamandalam | Photo Credit: K. K. Mustafah
Traditional knowledge is not just about medicinal plants, it is also about ecology too
Reminiscing about the past brings no faraway look in 60-year-old Nanjan Ginbantan’s eyes. The Irula tribesman’s face is animated as he recounts the vast colonies of vultures he would see even 40 years ago. “If you clapped your hands, hundreds would rise into the sky from these trees,” he says.
It was a common sight near his village, Anaikatty, which borders the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve near Masinagudi in Tamil Nadu. “Forty years ago, there were at least 500 to 1,000 vultures here. Three months ago, which was when I last sighted some, there were just 20 circling in the sky.”
“What do you think caused the decline?” asks Chandrasekar S., a naturalist studying vultures, as his colleague Rangaswamy M. video-records the conversation.
Vulture nesting sites, says Ginbantan, have decreased drastically. “For example, the 6-10 nests we always saw in Siriyur village till 2014 are no longer there.”
Ginbantan has other interesting insights into vulture behaviour. It’s not vultures, but crows that find carcasses first, he says; vultures note the aggregation of crows and then fly down to the dead animal.
Interestingly, researchers in Kenya discovered a similar system of ‘information scrounging’ by Gyps vultures (species of the same genus are seen near Ginbantan’s village too) four years ago, where vultures locate carcasses by borrowing information from scavenging eagles.
Muddy boots
Ginbantan’s intimate knowledge about the vultures of Masinagudi, passed down over generations or gathered from experience, is what Chandrasekar and his team are mining as part of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation’s Mud on Boots project that is trying to understand the decline of vulture population in the Nilgiris.
Irula shepherd Nanjan Ginbantan talks about vultures | Photo Credit: M. Sathyamoorthy
This is one of several such projects across India where researchers are documenting traditional environmental knowledge held by indigenous communities in order to use it to conserve ecosystems and species.
The stereotype that traditional knowledge is only about medicinal plants and alternative healing is being challenged now. Scientists have begun to recognise that it also includes ecological and eco-geographical knowledge. It was this wealth, for instance, that the British tapped into to identify new places and cultures, plants and animals as they colonised the country.
First accounts
In the late 19th century, Muduvans and Kadars (indigenous communities of the forested areas of the southern Western Ghats) served as guides to the British who surveyed the Anamalai Mountains to identify the best valleys and hillslopes for tea and coffee plantations. Botanists and zoologists likewise sourced information from local communities for some of the first accounts of India’s flora and fauna.
Today, new species are still being identified like this: the only tree crab of the Western Ghats (Kani maranjandu), officially described just last year, was already known to the Kanis of southern Keralaand is named after them.
Traditional ecological knowledge often includes culturally-transmitted beliefs, even encompassing the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment. For example, assessing the traditional knowledge of 40 fishing communities along the east coast of Tamil Nadu, scientists of the Botanical Survey of India and other institutes found that the communities have a complex classification of diverse sea grasses, which takes into account their role in the marine ecosystem. Many seafaring and tribal communities also do not harvest resources from specific areas designated sacred, which helps preserve biodiversity.
Some communities have also used this knowledge to ‘manage’ biodiversity. In Arunachal Pradesh, scientists who documented the traditional soil knowledge of the Adi community found that the tribes could identify nine different types of soil, based on texture, colour and location. Adi farmers use this knowledge to manage soil erosion and fertility in diverse ways — such as using logs to prevent soil erosion or cultivating certain crops only in specific locations. Yet, the cultivation system of the Adis, shifting or jhum cultivation, is only viewed as ‘unsustainable’ because it involves clearing forests.
The Todas of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu also used to manage high-elevation shola-grasslands, where they live. They would protect the sholas, small patches of evergreen woods, and burn nearby grasslands to foster fresh growth for their Toda buffaloes, a strategy that stopped after the shola-grasslands were afforded official protection. Recent interviews with Todas reveal that despite the conversion of surrounding lands into plantations (of exotic pine and acacia) and farms, the Todas still hold on to some of their traditional socio-ecological knowledge. Their preference for a shola-cum-grassland landscape continues.
“Grasses give wetness to the earth,” says Pol Kwair, 71, a Toda tribesman who lives near Glenmorgan. “And the native trees give us this water back through streams. Exotics don’t,” he tells Chandrasekar.
Toda tribesman Pol Kwair displays native plants | Photo Credit: M. Sathyamoorthy
Indigenous wisdom is also strict about adhering to sustainable harvests and resource use. In Kerala, for example, the Malasar tribe of Parambikulam Tiger Reserve follows an interesting custom during wild tuber harvesting. The tubers are harvested from only one hill in any given year, says Mahali Thangavelu, a Malasar tribesman from Sungam Colony in Parambikulam. “The harvested plants would be re-harvested. The next year, the tubers on another hill would be harvested,” he says.
However, no one remembers these traditions now because they no longer depend on wild tubers, says Thangavelu. Kwair echoes a similar concern. “We know where to find different types of grasses and shola trees, and their specific uses,” he says. “But the younger generation is not interested. Modernisation has changed the need to learn.”
So much lost
So how much of such knowledge is being lost? A recent analysis of 92 studies on indigenous knowledge systems from around the world showed that 77% of them reported a loss of wisdom, driven chiefly by globalisation, modernisation and market integration. A recent review of 92 studies on local and indigenous ecological knowledge from across the world reports a loss of wisdom driven chiefly by globalisation, modernisation and market integration.
Moreover, most traditional knowledge is passed down by word of mouth, including via songs and stories. In 2012, scientists examined the co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in areas with high plant and animal species diversity. They found that the extremely biodiverse areas of the world, including the Western Ghats and north-eastern India, account for 70% of all languages on earth: languages that are unique, often endemic, and facing extinction. Preserving linguistic diversity is crucial for preserving biological diversity — when languages go extinct, so does ecological knowledge.
Dynamic tradition
But seeing this only as ‘lost knowledge’ downplays the ‘dynamic’ nature of it, say recent studies. For instance, the invasion of lantana is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Biligirirangaswamy Hills Wildlife Sanctuary in southern Karnataka. But scholars at Bengaluru’s Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment learnt from the Soliga tribals’ observations that it was the forest department’s ban on the use of fire, after the area was declared protected, which encouraged the growth of lantana and other dense vegetation.
“My interactions have taught me that ‘tradition’ is a dynamic process, evolving and adapting to requirements, changing times and ways of thinking and relevance,” says Manish Chandi, senior researcher, Andaman and Nicobar Environment Team, who has studied indigenous communities in the southern Western Ghats and presently studies the Nicobar islanders.
Traditional knowledge indeed calibrates itself to changing ecosystem, says Anita Varghese, deputy director, Keystone Foundation, which has been working with tribal communities around the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. One of their biggest successes has been in marketing honey collected by the tribes. The community is able to predict the volume, maturity and seasonality of honey, all of which contribute to sustainable ways of collection, says Varghese. “They have thumb rules for all these.”
Keystone has initiated a village elder programme in the hamlets of this area, where elders are encouraged to go for walks in the forest with children so that knowledge can be passed on.
Beyond inventory
For scientists, this information can be invaluable — from managing protected areas to conservation education, development planning, and environmental assessment. The Convention on Biological Diversity that India ratified in 2012 also recognises this, requiring nations to “respect, preserve, maintain and promote traditional knowledge” with the consent of indigenous communities.
Yet those working in this field often stop with just documentation. Inventories are a good beginning, but how we go beyond that is crucial, says Aarthi Sridhar, founder trustee of Dakshin Foundation.
“Seamlessly integrating traditional knowledge with science presents interesting challenges. For fishers, the kadal matha [sea goddess] might signify an explicitly cultural space and entity. Whereas for fishing science it can only be translated as the ecological system. What is the place of gods in understanding the sea scientifically? Or has this deliberately been lost in its translation?” asks Sridhar.
If we are a bit more accommodating, traditional knowledge can have a lot more relevance by accounting for various factors that are at play in the environment, says Chandi. “This is where science, or the art of science, can become important.”
Chroniclers such as Chandrasekar and his team say that their conversations have completely changed their perceptions about not just vultures but the landscape as well.
“White-rumped vultures usually nest on Arjuna [Terminalia arjuna, a deciduous species] trees,” says Chandrasekar. “Some Irula tribesfolk tell us that numerous Arjuna trees died in a drought last year. So have numbers of the vulture been affected too? Could exotic weeds that have spread dramatically over the past decades have a role to play? There are now so many more questions to ask and so much more to learn.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Environment / by Aathira Perinchery / November 10th, 2018
Winning moves: Viswanathan Anand showcased his prowess on Wednesday to best the rapid champion Hikaru Nakamura for the blitz crown.
The Indian legend turns it on to trump favourite Nakamura in the tie-break
For Viswanathan Anand, the moment of triumph in the Tata Steel blitz chesstook a while coming.
In a tense environment, filled with suspense and intrigue inside a packed Satyajit Ray Auditorium here, when Anand overpowered hot favourite Hikaru Nakamura, the wait was truly worth it.
It was the kind of day Anand never had in his long, illustrious career. Trailing Nakamura by 1.5 points at the half-way stage, Anand won six games and drew three to force a two-game tie-break with the favourite. Saving his best for the last, Anand prevailed 1.5-0.5 to emerge a worthy champion.
In a reduced time-format of three minutes plus two-second increment for every move made, Anand won in 55 moves in a perfect finish with white pieces. In the next, playing black, Anand defended superbly and eventually drew in 72 moves to seal the title.
Magical moment
“This is very special, considering I have not done well in the blitz format this year. I am happy to show something special for the Kolkata crowd. I was disappointed that I could not do for the crowd in Chennai (in the 2013 World championship match). But today, I feel, I played some very good games. What happened was something magical,” said the reigning World blitz bronze-medallist.
Anand, who expectedly drew his last round with Aronian, owed the playoff to R. Praggnanandhaa who came out undefeated against Nakamura for the second time in 24 hours. Showing precise defensive skills in testing positions, the 13-year-old forced a ‘stalemate’ in 72 moves, that too, with black pieces, much to the joy those expecting a playoff for the title.
Anand, whose six victims included the other four Indians, also owed it to Hari for slowing down Nakamura’s march. Before fading out, Hari avenged the second-round defeat while Praggnanandhaa, exceeded all expectations by holding the top seed in both their games.
Anand, whose reputation as a ‘lightning kid’ is still fresh in memory, reproduced the magic on what coincidently, was ‘Children’s Day’.
Taking off
He opened the day by stopping Wesley So and gained the momentum by beating Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. After a drawing with Sergey Karjakin, Anand repeated his hat-trick of wins over compatriots Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Vidit Gujarati and Praggnanandhaa.
At this point, Anand and Nakamura shared the lead, with Aronian trailing by half a point. What followed was Anand’s draw with joint leader Nakamura, a result that helped Aronian rejoin the leaders, at 10.5 points, following a resounding victory over Mamedyarov.
Aronian, third overnight, made his charge by winning three of the first four rounds and enjoyed a half-point lead at nine points after 13 rounds. His victims included Vidit, Praggnanandhaa and Hari. After a draw with Ganguly kept him back, he was back in the lead after beating Mamedyarov.
Unlike Anand and Aronian, who shared the lead following an unbeaten streak, Nakamura lost to Hari in the 11th round and then drew with Aronian and So before getting past Mamedyarov and Karjakin.
Young Praggnanandhaa found the going much tougher than he did on Tuesday. After a draw with Hari, the 13-year-old suffered six straight losses, a sequence he snapped by checkmating Ganguly in 97 moves.
The results (Indians unless stated):
(18th round): Hikaru Nakamura (USA) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa; Levon Aronian (Arm) drew with Viswanathan Anand; P. Hari Krishna lost to Vidit Gujarati; Wesley So (USA) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus) ; Surya Shekhar Ganguly lost to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze) (17th round): Anand bt Hari; Vidit lost to Nakamura; Karjakin drew with Aronian; Mamedyarov lost to So; Praggnanadhaa bt Ganguly; (16th round): Nakamura drew with Anand; Aronian bt Mamedyarov; Hari lost to Karjakin; Praggnanandhaa lost to Vidit; Ganguly bt So; (15th round): Anand bt Praggnanandhaa; Karjakin lost to Nakamura; Mamedyarov drew with Hari; So drew with Aronian; Vidit drew with Ganguly; (14th round); Vidit lost to Anand; Nakamura bt Mamedyarov; Hari bt So; Ganguly drew with Aronian; Praggnanandhaa lost to Karjakin; (13th round): Anand bt Ganguly; So drew with Nakamura; Aronian bt Hari; Mamedyarov bt Praggnanandhaa; Karjakin lost to Vidit; (12th round): Anand drew with Karjakin; Nakamura drew with Aronian; Ganguly bt Hari; Vidit lost to Mamedyarov; Praggnanandhaa lost to So; (11th round): Mamedyarov lost to Anand; Hari bt Nakamura; Aronian bt Praggnanandhaa; So drew with Vidit; Karjakin drew with Ganguly; (10th round): Anand bt So; Ganguly lost to Nakamura; Praggnanandhaa drew with Hari; Vidit lost to Aronian; Karjakin drew with Mamedyarov.
Final standings: 1-2 Anand and Nakamura (12.5 points), 3. Aronian (12), 4. So (10), 5-7. Mamedyarov, Hari, Vidit (8 each), 8. Karjakin (7.5), 9. Ganguly (6), 10. Praggnanandhaa (5.5).
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Other Sports / by Rakesh Rai / Kolkata – November 14th, 2018
