Padmini Rout
Padmini Rout (born 5 January 1994) is an Indian chess player. She holds the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She is a four-time National Women's Premier title holder consecutively from 2014-2017 and was the Asian women's champion of 2018. Rout was honoured with the Biju Patnaik Sports Award for the year 2007 and the Ekalavya Award in 2009. Career. In 2005 Rout won her first national title, under-11 girls at Nagpur. In 2006, she was both the Indian under-13 girls champion and the Asian under-12 girls champion. Rout won the  U14 girls' section of both Asian and World Youth Chess Championships in 2008. The following year she finished first in the Asian Junior (Under-20) Girls Championship. In 2010, she won the Indian junior (U19) girls championship and took the bronze medal at both Asian and World Junior Girls Championships. In the Asian Individual Women's Championship 2011 she tied for 2nd–6th places and won it in 2018. Rout won the Indian Women's Championship in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. In 2015, she also became the Commonwealth women's champion. Rout played for the Indian national team at Women's  Chess Olympiad, Women's World Team Chess Championship and Women's Asian Team Chess Championship. She won an individual gold medal playing on the reserve board at the 2014 Women's Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway. She has been part of the Indian women's team in the subsequent Chess Olympiads in 2016 at Baku, Azerbaijan and 2018 at Batumi, Georgia. Personal life. Born in Barambagarh, Odisha, Padmini started playing chess at the age of 9 (2003) because of her father Dr. Ashok Kumar Rout's passion for the game. She did her schooling from D.A.V. Public School, Chandrasekharpur and  graduated in Commerce from BJB College in Bhubaneswar.