Harika Dronavalli

Harika Dronavalli (born 12 January 1991) is an Indian chess grandmaster. She was part of the gold winning women's team at the 45th Chess Olympiad in 2024. She has won three bronze medals in the Women's World Chess Championship, in 2012, 2015 and 2017. Harika was honored with the Arjuna Award for the year 2007–08 by the government of India. In 2016, she won the FIDE Women's Grand Prix event at Chengdu, China and rose up from world no. 11 to world no. 5 in FIDE women's ranking. In 2019, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her contributions towards the field of sports.

Early life Harika Dronavalli was born in a Telugu family to Ramesh and Swarna Dronavalli on 12 January 1991 in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. She attended Sri Venkateswara Bala Kuteer school. Her father works as a deputy executive engineer at a Panchayat Raj subdivision in Mangalagiri. She started playing chess at a very young age and won a medal in the under-9 national championship. She followed it up with a silver medal in the world youth chess championship for under-10 girls. She subsequently became a student of coach NVS Ramaraju who refined her game.

Personal life She married Hyderabad-based Karteek Chandra in August 2018. She gave birth to her first child on 24 August 2022 after having played at the 2022 Chess Olympiad, where the Indian women won the bronze medal, while in her ninth month of pregnancy.

Achievements Awards 2003: Woman International Master (WIM) title - youngest woman international master, Asian continent 2004: Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Title - youngest woman grandmaster, Asian continent 2007: International Master (IM) title 2011: Grandmaster (GM) title - Second woman to become Grandmaster in India 2016 and 2017: Chess Player of the Year by The Times of India (TOISA Annual Awards) 2017: Featured by Verve magazine as one of the top 40 popular women sportspersons of the year 2019: Awarded Padma Shri on 26 January (Republic Day)

Competitions

National level achievements 2009 - National Women Chess Championship, Chennai - Gold Medal. Won 16 Medals in National Level Tournaments including Women 'A' Championship, Women 'B' Championship, National Junior Girls and Sub-Junior Girls Titles during these 16 years.