During her Budget speech, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman made a quick segue to give a shoutout to teenage chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa.
“Chess prodigy and our Number One ranked player Praggnanandhaa put up a stiff fight against the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in 2023. Today, India has over 80 chess Grandmasters (GM) compared to a little over 20 in 2010,” she said, while lauding the country’s youth for scaling new heights in sports.