er games or party each week-end, I would certainly missbeing a normal teen.

What would you rankas the highest point inyour career so far?Becoming a national champion(Netherlands) twice in 2009 and 2011.Also playing on equal terms withthe top players in Wijk aan Zee 2011and Dortmund 2011, where I wasable to score 50 per cent, is what Iam also really proud of.

10

SPORTSPACEMONDAY 8 AUGUST 2011t

H e outclassed worldnumber oneMagnus Carlsenearlier this yearand helped

Viswanathan Anand in hisWorld Championship gameagainst Veselin Topalov last year.Anish Giri works the keyboardto tell t2 what makes him theprince of the 64 squares.

In a recent interview to t2,world champion ViswanathanAnand picked you as thechamp of the future. Howdoes it feel being hailed as achess prodigy?I am indeed happy to hear thisand it is certainly an honour forme. But there is still a lot ofwork to be done as well as luckneeded to live up to expectations.

How did you develop aninterest in chess?I don’t really remember. I had aninterest from my childhood. Itried, even won at some pointand started to like it, I guess.

You became a Grandmaster at14. What would your advicebe for kids around theworld who have a talentfor chess and want tobe where you are?If they have talentand they really wantto succeed, thenwith the help of abit of luck they arethere. You need towork hard so thatluck favours you.And you must like it,obviously!

What have the posi-tives and negatives oftaking up chess been foryou?A lot of positives — I am doingwhat I like and enjoy and so far I

am successful with it. I am trav-elling around the world, meetinga lot of interesting people….

Negatives would be that Ispend a lot of time on chess. Icannot properly enjoy withfriends and do other things that Ilike — playing football and tabletennis, for instance. But thenagain, that was eventually mychoice.

How do you manage tobalance studies and chess?The school is ready to cooperateand so I am able to skip someweeks and then do the skippedtests afterwards. There has beenno problem so far, but with eachyear it gets harder as both schooland chess demand more timeand effort. I need to study twomore years in college and then Iwill see what to do.

What kind of supporthave you got fromfriends and family?I always get ample moral andpsychological support from my

family and friends. They alsohelp me in making decisions andtake care that I don’t go nuts byonly playing chess!

Do you miss beinga normal teenager?Well, I don’t see it as being abnor-mal actually! I am a normalteenager among my school andother friends. Maybe I have lesstime to communicate with myfriends from school. If instead ofchess I would rather play comput-

Which was that one momentwhen you realised that youwere in the big league?Hard to say, but I guess winningthe Dutch Championship in 2009and mainly winning the B-groupof Wijk aan Zee 2010 (qualifyingto the A-group) brought me tosome kind of a new league, so tospeak.

Your most memorablegame so far?Obviously playing the world’s topis hard to forget, so my gameswith Anand, (Vladimir)Kramnik, (Magnus) Carlsen,(Vassily) Ivanchuk, (Boris)Gelfand would count as highpoints. But to pick one, my gameagainst Anand in TATA 2011,where I almost managed to out-play and beat the reigning WorldChampion is rather memorable.

You assisted Anandin his World Championshipmatch against Topalov lastyear. What was thatexperience like?It was my first experience with areal world-class player, not tomention the World Champion. Itwas obviously a great experienceand honour for me. To put itbriefly, after having played a fewquick games with Anand, Irealised that I still have a lot toimprove and work on.

Who are your chess idols?I don’t have idols (probably Ihave grown up!). Nevertheless,I see (Garry) Kasparov standingout as being the last one who’smanaged to dominate the chessworld.

Who would you like tothank for your success,professionally and personally?It would be a long list — all thepeople that support and help me,of course my family, friends, my

first coaches, my currentcoach Vladimir Chuchelov

(the coach of DutchFederation), who’s beenhelping me for the lasttwo years, bringing mypreparation to a newlevel and all other peo-ple that I can’t mentionin the list, that wouldotherwise be endless.

Do you watch/ followany other sport?

Yes, but I like to watchmainly big matches/games.

Big championships of football(like World Cup, European cham-pionship), Olympics, sometimestennis and athletics. But I am nota hardcore sport follower — Isimply don’t have time for that,unfortunately.

What are your goalsover the next one year?For now I plan to finish myschool in two years and I want tokeep playing with the world’s top,as I managed in Wijk aan Zeeand Dortmund this year. But ingeneral, I usually have short-term goals and try not to thinktoo much about the future!

Priyanka Roy

t2@abp.in

Favourite filmI can’t pick one,but usually I likeone of the latestI watched, as theimpression itleaves is stillthere. So it would

be the last two different movies Iliked — The King’s Speech andInception.

Favourite actor Mr Bean — hard to find a better person to identify yourself with!

FavouriteactressI onceanswered“the prettierthe better”.I haven’t gotwiser sincethen.

Favourite pastimeYou would laugh, but chess.Watching something funnylike a comedy film or showhas never hurt anyone yet,either. Sometimes, I do

watch Hindi movies as well — watchedDhoom: 2, Namastey London, Om ShantiOm (with English subtitles obviously!)

Favourite foodI like good food ofwhatever origin,could be French,Spanish, Indian,Russian, whatever,but it has to begood (tastyI mean!)

CHAMP INTHE MAKING

I don’t haveidols (probably

I have grown up!).Nevertheless, I see (Garry)Kasparov standing out asbeing the last one who’smanaged to dominate

the chess world

Born on June 28, 1994, Anish Giri met his final Grandmaster norm at 14 years, 7 months and 2 days,making him the youngest ever Grandmaster in the chess history of Soviet Union/ Russia and theNetherlands. The son of a Nepalese father and a Russian mother, Anish, now 17, lives in the Dutch townof Rijswijk and is ranked number 40 in the FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World ChessFederation) list. In January this year, Anish beat world number 1 Magnus Carlsen with Black in 22moves at the Wijk Aan Zee chess tournament in The Netherlands.

It was my firstexperience with a real

world-class player, not tomention the World Champion.

It was obviously a greatexperience and honour for me. To

put it briefly, after having played afew quick games with Anand, Irealised that I still have a lot to

improve and work on

(On assisting Anand againstTopalov last year)

AT 17, CHESS PRODIGY ANISH GIRIIS ALREADY BEING HAILED AS A STAR

T H E S E A R E A F E W O F H I S F A V O U R I T E T H I N G S

INCEPTION OM SHANTI OM

t

PAGE 10

! CATWOMAN 11 ! KNICK-KNACK SHOW 13 ! TALKING POINTS 14 ! QUIZ TIME 15

Monday8 August 2011

LI’L CHAMP

CALCUTTA

CUISINE

LI’L CHAMP

PAGE 8-9

ANISH GIRI

! FOREIGN 3 ! BENGAL 7 ! SPORT 13-16 ! METRO 17-20

CALCUTTA MONDAY 8 AUGUST 2011 Rs 2.50 www.telegraphindia.comXXCL36 PAGES

INBRIEF

More rainforecast■ Rain, which whipped

Calcutta on and off for 33hours since Saturdaymorning, is likely tocontinue for the next twodays, according to weatherofficials. The rain led towaterlogging, undergroundcable faults, power cutsand train disruptions onSunday.METRO

Maoist attack plan■A Maoist commander

arrested in Jharkhand hasallegedly revealed a rebelplan to attack a policestation in Birbhum.NATION P6

Acommunitythat was alreadyhurting has now

had the heartripped out of it

DAVID LAMMYa member of Parliament

on the London riots

Backlash blaze in LondonBlack anger erupts after police shooting death

AMITROY

London, Aug. 7: Once again,parts of Britain are burning.

The old nightmare from25 years ago of pitched bat-tles between a largely whitepolice force and black youthsis back with a vengeance inTottenham, the area in northLondon that gives its name toone of the country’s most fa-mous football clubs, Totten-ham Hotspur.

Dawn broke today to re-veal offices gutted by arson-ists, electronic shops strippedbare by looters, a bus reduced to scrap metal, three policecars similarly destroyed and smouldering buildings beinghosed down by water jets. Everywhere, there is the acridsmell of burning.

Then there is the human cost: community life ruined, thelocal population left traumatised and angry, 26 injured offi-cers taken to hospital and 42 people arrested for offences in-cluding violent disorder, burglary and theft.

It was triggered after a young black man, Mark Duggan,was stopped by police and shot dead, apparently after open-ing fire first.

Was it a race riot? The answer is yes and no.The general assumption is that race relations had impro-

ved greatly since the now-notorious riot at Broadwater Farm

in 1985 when a police consta-ble, Keith Blakelock, washacked to death with a ma-chete during a battle betweenthe police and black youthson a local council estate.

Today, the area has ablack MP, David Lammy, a ris-ing young politician who wasa cabinet minister in the lastLabour government.

He said the communityhad “had the heart ripped outof it” by “mindless, mindlesspeople”, many of whom hadcome from outside Totten-ham to cause trouble.

Speaking from behind police tapes in the High Road todayin Tottenham, he said: “There are homeless people standingback there. We have officers in hospital, some of whom areseriously injured. It’s a disgrace. This must stop.”

But set against Lammy’s status as a role model is thelarge population of sullen black youths, uneducated, unem-ployed and unemployable, disproportionately involved incrime and picked up disproportionately by the police forquestioning and searches even when they are innocent.

Police clearly felt Duggan, 29, was up to no good and hadbeen trailing him. The officers were from Operation Trident,which deals with gun crime in the black community.

Fire rages through a building in Tottenham on Sunday. (AP)Picture on Page 3 shows how the building looks now

When to tell and when not to tellPrivacyfades if

in publicinterestARCHIS MOHANAND

G.S. MUDUR

New Delhi, Aug. 7: Publicdiscourse in India faced anunusual moment last weekwhen the Congress an-nouncedthatSoniaGandhiwas about to undergo sur-gery for a medical condi-tion that was not specified.

The family, which had be-en confronted by tragedy aft-er tragedy in its public life, al-so conveyed an appeal throu-gh the party that Sonia’s pri-vacy be respected. The main-stream media has largely ex-ercised restraint.

However, since Sonia is al-so the most influential politici-an in the country and heads aparty that runs the world’s lar-gest democracy, her hospitalis-ation has raised questions co-ncerning the private mattersof public figures, medical ethi-cs and the need to preserve afamily’s right to privacy anddiscretion.

Medical ethics has unam-biguous answers, unlike theother two questions that donot throw up readymade solu-tions. In remaining silentabout the nature of her illness,Sonia has exercised an invio-lable right available to everyperson, whether a private citi-zen or a prominent public per-sonality, according to doctors.

“It’s an absolute, inviolableright of every patient,” saidGeorge Thomas, an orthopa-edic surgeon in Chennai andeditor of the Indian Journal ofMedical Ethics. “A patient’shealth information should notbe revealed by doctors withoutthe consent of the patient.”

But, doctors pointed out,the hospitalisation of publicpersonalities has sometimesled Indian hospitals to issuebulletins, although this isdone with the consent of thepatient. Doctors recall themedia interest when actorAmitabh Bachchan was ad-mitted to a Mumbai hospitalor when Mumbai doctors flew

in to operate on Prime Minis-ter Manmohan Singh.

There is another element.Some believe disclosures abo-ut illnesses by popular figuresmay serve a public purpose,perhaps facilitating faster di-agnosis for other patients ortheir acceptance of a medicalcondition.

When Ronald Reagan an-nounced his Alzheimer’s diag-nosis in 1994 — five years afterhe had left office — he releaseda public letter to all Ameri-cans, saying his wife Nancyand he believed it was impor-tant to share the information.

“In the past, when Nancysuffered from breast cancerand I had my cancer surgeries,we found through our opendisclosures we were able toraise public awareness. Wewere happy that as a result,many more people underwenttesting. They were treated inearly stages and able to returnto normal, healthy lives,” Rea-gan’s letter said.

In the West now, high-profi-le women — not just in politicsbut in many other walks of life— choose to be open when dia-gnosed with ailments such ascancer in the hope that it wou-ld help others. Jenni Murray,one of the best known figuresin British broadcasting as pre-senter of Woman’s Hour onBBC Radio 4, announced shehad cancer in the most publicway — on her programme.

The driving force behindsuch disclosures is the grow-ing opinion that “if you refuseto talk about it, you’re treatingit as something shameful”.

When it comes to the priva-cy of political figures, the pic-ture becomes hazy. Hush-hushwas the mantra in the erst-while Soviet Union that per-fected the art of concealingthe medical conditions of itsgeriatric leaders.

Kremlin’s reasons for secr-ecy varied from fears that dis-closure of failing health couldlead to the weakening of cen-tral authority, to apprehen-sion that news of the death ofa former leader who had fallenout of favour but remainedpopular in the country maylead to protests.

Nikita Khrushchev, thesupreme Soviet leader from1953 to 1964, died an unsungdeath in September 1971. Thedeposed Khrushchev’s demisewas not announced for severaldays because his successorsdid not want his passing to be-come a rallying point.

Similarly, neither the Russ-ian public nor the world hadany inkling of Leonid Brezh-nev’s decade-long fight withdebilitating ailments.

In contrast, medical detailsof US politicians are routinelymade public, though such dis-closures are not mandatory.“But it has become a norm.The public expects to know ab-

out the health of its leadersand they in turn have a respo-nsibility to be honest with the-ir electorate,” said Mark Mag-nier, the South Asia correspo-ndent of the Los AngelesTimes.

Not that America was al-ways so. The scrutiny of USPresidents became intense aft-er Watergate. “John F. Kenn-edy had a bad back and he wo-uld be on drugs. But the mediadidn’t report it at the time. Fa-cts about Kennedy’s health be-came public much later. Thismay not be possible now. NowUS Presidents undergo annualhealth check-ups and theymake this public as a rule,”Magnier said.

Such public disclosuresaren’t the norm across the At-lantic. Daniel Lak, former So-uth Asia correspondent ofBBC, said that until the 1990s,the UK media didn’t write ab-out the royal family’s healthunless they themselves wish-ed some news should go out.

Sonia’s status is somewhatunique. She is neither thePresident nor royalty but herinfluence reaches far beyondthat of both in India.

One yardstick about disclo-sure can be the impact of themedical condition on decision-making. A balance needs to bestruck over whether disclo-sure of the health condition isin the public interest.

The British media, which

can be very intrusive as thecontroversy over phone-hack-ing has revealed, can be sur-prisingly sensitive when deal-ing with illness. But such amatter could not be treated en-tirely as “private” if decisionsmade by the individual affectthe lives of ordinary people.

“In cases where the condi-tion has political conseque-nces, if it is likely to keep theleader away from their dutiesor impair their functioning,the balance should be towardsdisclosure,” said Francis El-liott of The Times, London.

There is little yet to suggesta parallel can be drawn be-tween the conditions mention-ed above and Sonia’s health.

Elliott illustrated with anexample what he meant by“public interest”. The Britishmedia had steered clear of areport about a former PrimeMinister’s daughter attempti-ng suicide. “It did not serveany public interest to makepublic this girl’s suicide atte-mpt. She had lived a life underimmense pressure being thePrime Minister’s daughterand the media respected thehuman side of the incident,”Elliott said.

But concealing informati-on encourages rumour-mon-gering, said sociologist AshisNandy.

“It (concealment) is silly,short-sighted and counterpro-ductive to hide information,”

he said. “It makes people morecurious and leads to rumours.People in public life should bemore open. All you need to dois follow the American exam-ple where they come out withregular medical bulletins.Don’t answer questions but doinform the public about thebare facts,” Nandy added.

But concealment is alsocredited with changing thecourse of history. Accordingto some historians, the fate ofthe subcontinent may havebeen different had Congressleaders known of MuhammadAli Jinnah’s precarious heal-th. Jinnah succumbed to tu-berculosis in September 1948,a little over a year after he hadensured the birth of Pakistan.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BYAMIT ROY IN LONDON

Change fromVIPculture

K.P. NAYAR

Washington, Aug. 7: SoniaGandhi is the first Indianpolitician in a long, long timenot to rely on the governmentor its infrastructure for med-ical treatment abroad.

When former Prime Minis-ter Chandrasekhar was admit-ted to the St Vincent’s Compre-hensive Cancer Center inNew York for prolonged treat-ment in July 2005, the facilitiesof the Indian consulate-general in New York werestretched to their limit in as-sisting him and his large en-tourage.

Similarly, when MurasoliMaran, the DMK ministerin Atal Bihari Vajpayee’sgovernment, was taken toTexas in November 2002to be cared for at the MethodistHospital System, theIndian consulate-general inHouston had a difficult timemeeting his ministerial de-mands.

Dinesh Singh was retainedas external affairs ministerin P.V. Narasimha Rao’s gov-ernment for two years afterhe suffered a stroke and wasunable to even attend meet-ings that were vital to his job.Then he was kept in the cabi-net as minister without portfo-lio so that the government’ssupport structure was avail-able for his health care untilhe passed away in November1995.

Members of ManmohanSingh’s cabinet had fixed offi-

cial visits to America duringthe tenures of UPA I and UPAII when the true purposeof those trips was a medicalcheck-up in the US. Theseministers even got Indiandiplomatic personnel tomanage their health careneeds.

During Sonia’s currentstay at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center inManhattan for surgery andsubsequent treatment, neithershe nor anyone accompanyingher has made any demandson the Indian diplomaticmissions and posts in theUS.

Even the token Special Pro-tection Group presence withher in order to meet the mand-atory demands under the lawis extremely low-key. TheSPG personnel have beentold to abjure all but the un-avoidable contacts with thestaff of these diplomatic out-posts.

All phone calls by mem-bers of Sonia’s entourage arebeing made from “blocked”numbers so that no one whomthey contact for specific re-quirements can call themback.

Pulok Chatterji, India’s ex-ecutive director to the WorldBank, continues to be thepoint of contact, but only forthose who need to deal withthe requirements of the Con-gress president’s hospital stayin New York.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ▼

FACED WITH AILMENT, SOME RESPONSESHow the medical conditions of some well-known personalities were made public

Ronald ReaganThe former American

President disclosed thathe had Alzheimer’s in a

moving letter to US citizensfive years after he had leftthe White House. Although

not a public figure then,he justified his decision

to go public by hoping thatit would promote greater

awareness of the condition.That did not stop Americafrom discussing if he had

the condition when he tookdecisions as President

Betty FordBetty Ford, who died last

month, became one of themost popular US First Ladiesbecause of her frankness in

confronting cancer and addic-tion to pills. In 1974, Betty, the

wife of President Gerald R.Ford, had a radical mastecto-

my. In the months that followed,tens of thousands of Americanwomen, inspired by her forth-rightness and courage in fac-ing up to her illness, crowded

into doctors’ offices and clinicsfor breast-cancer examinations

Margaret ThatcherIn Britain, it was an open

secret that the former PrimeMinister was sliding into

dementia since 2002. Sincethe Iron Lady was no longera public figure, her privacy

was respected. But in 2008,Thatcher’s daughter Carol

announced that her mother,then 82, was suffering fromdementia and listed excruci-

ating details.Widespreadcriticism greeted Carol’s

disclosure, which many feltwas made for money

Hugo ChávezThe Venezuelan President’s

experience showed theperils of suppressing

medical conditions in theinformation age. So strongwere the rumours swirlingaround his disappearance

that Chávez was compelledto acknowledge on state

television on June 30that he had been battlingcancer. Chávez made the

revelation from Cuba,where he had been at

a medical facility

George W. BushThe then US President faintedand hit his head on the floor

and a table after eating a pret-zel while watching a televisedfootball game in 2002. Such isthe scrutiny American leadersare subjected to that the White

House made an announce-ment.The White House physi-cian examined Bush and “didnot find any reason to think itwas serious”. Bush later said:“My mother always said, whenyou’re eating pretzels, chew

before you swallow”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 ▼

TCALCUTTAPLATTERt2 PAGES 8-9

CHESS CHAMPt2 PAGE 10