Kolkata, June 25: Former President Pranab Mukherjee's presence at a recent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) event has worked as a catalyst in boosting the organisation's membership that is already on the rise across the country, a senior RSS leader said here on Monday.
"Pranab Mukherjee is the former Indian President and a veteran politician. So his presence at the RSS event on June 7 certainly evoked a lot of interest among people.
"The membership in RSS is already on the rise in the country for the good work it has been doing. Mukherjee's visit has also worked as one of the reasons for the increase in membership applications," RSS General Secretary (South Bengal), Jishnu Basu told reporters here.
He said the organisation had been receiving 378 membership applications on an average per day from all over India till early June, but got 1,779 applications on June 7, the day Mukherjee attended the event at the RSS' Nagpur headquarters. There has been a significant spike in membership since then.
However, he refused to accept that Mukherjee's speech from a RSS platform was the only reason for more people joining the organisation.
Basu said the growth of the RSS in West Bengal is significantly higher compared to other states in recent months as it has been the only platform that is consistently fighting against the rising fundamentalism and atrocities against political opponents in the state.
"The RSS membership in Bengal is among one of the highest in the country. Bengal has consistently been in the first or second position in the Join RSS portal in recent months," he said.
RSS south Bengal Prachar Pramukh Biplob Roy said: "People across India want to join RSS as it has been working for the last 92 years to strengthen the country and keep its people together.
"It is the same in Bengal. That's why nearly 40 per cent of the membership applications we receive from across the country are from Bengal."
He also said the number of RSS 'shakhas' has increased from 300 to over 400 in north Bengal over the last one year. In south Bengal the number has gone up from 850 to more than 1,200.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).