Chess legend Viswanathan Anand will be honoured with the Hridaynath Mangeshkar Award. Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao will present the award in Mumbai on April 12. The previous recipients of the award include eminent personalities like Lata Mangeshkar, Babasaheb Purandare, Asha Bhosle, Amitabh Bachchan, Hariprasad Chaurasia and A R Rahman.

• Born on December 11, 1969, Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former world champion.
• He became India’s first grandmaster in 1988. He held the FIDE World Chess Championship from 2000 to 2002 and became the undisputed world champion in 2007.
• Other sports personalities like D Prasad, Praveen Thipsay along with his wife Bhagyashree Thipsay, Padmashree Anupama Gokhale, Raghunandan Gokhale, Dhanraj Pullay, Devendra Joshi, Kamesh Mehta and Parnali

Did You Know?

• A computer called Deep Thought became the first computer to beat an  international grandmaster in November 1988, Long Beach, California.
• The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means”the King is dead.”
• The folding  chessboard was invented by a priest who was forbidden to play chess. The  priest found a way around it by making a folding chessboard. When  folded together and put on a bookshelf, it simply looks like two books.
• The new Pawn move, advancing two squares on its first move instead of one, was first introduced in Spain in 1280.
• During World War II, some of the top Chess players were also code  breakers. British masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H.  O’D. Alexander was on the team which broke the Nazi Enigma code.