Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand retained the World Chess Championship title in Bonn late on Wednesday night after ending the 11th game with Russias Vladimir Kramnik in a draw.

Anand had earlier won the Championship in 2000 and 2007.

Anand won three games, drew seven times and lost once en route to winning the competition by 6.5 points to 4.5.

With this win, he became the first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament and Match.

He will next defend his title in the World Chess Championship 2009 against the winner of the challenger match between Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky.

Anand is one of four players in history to break the 2800-mark on the FIDE rating list. He was on the top of the world-rating list five out of six times from April 2007 to July 2008. In October 2008, he dropped out of the world top 3 for the first time since July 1996.

In 2007, he was awarded the second highest Indian civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan. He is also the first recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991-92, the countrys highest sporting honour. (ANI)

The trials of the most keenly awaited Diwali release, Golmaal Returns, have started in Mumbai.

On Sunday evening, the producers, Shree Ashtavinayak Cinevision, and the worldwide distributors, Indian Films - Studio 18 had an in-house trial, at which the response to the film was absolutely exemplary.

The other big show on Sunday evening was at Fun Republic, which was attended by Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Celina Jaitly, Rohit Shetty, Manish Malhotra and their families. According to sources, the celebrities and their folk were seen laughing and clapping unstoppably, during the myriad comic sequences in the film.

Some days back, a special trial of the film was held for Karisma and Kareena Kapoor, who were joined by the latter’s friend, director Lovely Singh (Kya Love Story Hai).

On Monday evening, the entire cast and crew of Golmaal Returns celebrated Diwali with select media in Mumbai. The dress code for the event was Indian.

Backing Mr Obama over John McCain, the Republican Party’s choice to succeed Mr Bush in November, he said the Democrat had the “ability to inspire”. “All Americans… not just African-Americans” would be proud of an Obama win, he argued. Mr McCain said he was not surprised at his “long-time friend’s” decision. He pointed out that other former secretaries of state had backed his own candidacy, naming them as Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander Haig - all Republicans. Addressing a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Mr Obama said he was “deeply humbled” by Mr Powell’s support. “He knows, as we do, that this is a moment where we need to come together as one nation - young and old, rich and poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Republican and Democrat,” he added. His campaign said earlier that the two men had spoken for 10 minutes by telephone. The Obama campaign also announced it had raised a record monthly total of more than $150m (£86m) in September, reaching a total of $605m and dwarfing the total of Mr McCain, who chose to stay within the public campaign financing system

The 52-hour countdown for Chandrayaan-1 — India’s first unmanned moon mission — will begin at Sriharikota spaceport early tomorrow for Wednesday’s historic launch.The integrated launch vehicle has already been moved into the second launch pad (umbilical tower) and launch rehearsals are underway, sources in India Space Research Organisation at Bangalore said.
“All the preparatory work is going as usual and the formal countdown would begin tomorrow morning about 0400 hrs,” Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) Associate Director Dr M Y S Prasad told PTI at Chennai.
“All the work including the checking of payloads went satisfactorily. The spacecraft launch would take place as per the schedule,” he said.
SDSC officials said if the weather turns out to be good, the PSLV-C11 would take off from the second launch pad on October 22, at 0620 hrs.
“After the rehearsals, we will make sure that everything is in place before the countdown,” they said.
Chandrayaan-1 is the first spacecraft mission of ISRO beyond Earth orbit. It would be followed by Chandrayaan-2 which features a lander and a rover. India and Russia would jointly participate in this project.
However, there might be a provision to accommodate payloads from other space agencies as happened in Chandrayaan-1.”This apart, studies are being conducted by ISRO on sending unmanned spacecraft to planet Mars as well as to asteroids and comets. Through such programmes, ISRO intends to undertake the exploration of space besides its primary mission of developing and utilising space technology for the overall development of the country”, officials of the Bangalore-headquartered agency said. PTI