India’s Fourth Female Grandmaster

Prelims: Current events of national and international importance

Why in News?

Recently, the 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh won the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025 final clash against compatriot Koneru Humpy to become India’s fourth female Grandmaster.

Other three Indian women who achieved GM titles were Koneru Humpy, Harika and R. Vaishali.

• The Grandmaster (GM) title – It is the highest designation in chess, awarded by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), the international chess governing body.

The International Chess Federation commonly called by its French acronym FIDE, is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations.

• Eligibility Criteria
• Traditional Route - Successfully obtaining 3 GM norms across at least 27 games, alongside achieving a FIDE rating of 2500, is essential for earning the Grandmaster title.
• Shortcut - Certain exceptional tournament results can grant automatic titles or norms independent of the standard requirements.
  • Examples - Arab Individual Championship, Continental Individual Championship, Junior World Championship (Under 20), Women’s World Cup, or the World Cup.
• GM Norms - Norms are performance indicators achieved in tournaments.
• A player must participate in events with at least 9 rounds and feature a sufficient number of titled players.      
• To achieve a GM norm, a player must maintain a tournament performance rating (TPR) of 2500+.
• Compete against a field where at least one-third are GMs and represented by players from different federations.

Reference                                                              

The Indiane Express| India’s Fourth Female Grandmaster