GMSurya Shekhar Ganguly

Surya Shekhar Ganguly was born in Kolkata in 1983 and learned chess from his grandfather at five. He won national under-10 and under-12 titles while still a child and collected several World Youth medals. He became an international master in 2000 and completed his grandmaster requirements at the 2002 Olympiad; FIDE records the GM title in 2003. He also won bronze at the 2002 World Junior Championship. Ganguly won six consecutive Indian national championships from 2003 to 2008. In 2009 he became Asian continental champion.

He worked as one of Viswanathan Anand’s seconds for the victorious world title matches of 2008, 2010 and 2012. At the 2010 World Team Championship he won individual gold and helped India take bronze. His later victories included the 2012 Fujairah Masters, the 2016 Bangkok Open and the 2019 Hunan Open. He received India’s Arjuna Award for 2005 and West Bengal’s Bangabhushan award in 2015. The 2024 Bengali film Dabaru was inspired by his life.