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President, All India Chess Federation
Nitin Narang serves as President of the All India Chess Federation, leading the national governing body for the 2024–2027 term. Alongside his role in chess administration, he is a second-generation entrepreneur and investor with interests spanning strategic consulting, digital media, consumer technology and fintech.
Nitin Narang is the President of the All India Chess Federation (AICF), elected unanimously in March 2024 for the 2024–2027 term. He is the youngest-ever president of the AICF and the first from Haryana to hold the office. He is the Founder & CEO of The Ideaz Factory, Co-Founder of Jist News, Founder of Future Shift Labs, owner of The Laugh Club (Chandigarh) and the producer of the Comedians Cricket League. He is also the Founder of Khabar Gaon (Hindi news, via TIF Multimedia Private Limited), on the board of InstaPe (digital payments) and is publicly associated with HearClear India (Narang-family hearing-care network) and the Khaao Aur Khaane Do F&B brand. He has invested in over twenty companies. Earlier, he served as Vice President of the Haryana Chess Association.
Nitin Narang is the President of the All India Chess Federation, the national governing body for chess in India. Elected unanimously in March 2024, he leads the federation for the 2024–2027 term and is the youngest-ever national president of the AICF. He is the first administrator from Haryana to hold the office. A second-generation entrepreneur from Karnal, Haryana, Nitin is the Founder & CEO of The Ideaz Factory, a strategy and communications firm established in 2013 with public-affairs and consumer-brand clients across India. He has strategised major state elections and is publicly reported to have invested in over twenty companies across digital media, consumer technology, payments, F&B, live entertainment and emerging policy-tech. He is Co-Founder of Jist News, a digital news platform founded in January 2023 with Rishi Pratim Mukherjee and Sattvik Mishra that has crossed five million followers; Founder of Future Shift Labs, a global think tank on AI governance, policy and digital statecraft; owner-operator of The Laugh Club, Chandigarh's premier live stand-up venue; producer of the Comedians Cricket League, India's only annual cricket-meets-comedy property; and is publicly listed as Co-Founder of HearClear India and on the board of InstaPe. He is also associated with the homegrown Khaao Aur Khaane Do casual-dining brand from Chandigarh. In chess administration, Nitin previously served as Vice President of the Haryana Chess Association, where he supported grassroots development and state-level tournaments. As AICF President, he has introduced a multi-year development blueprint titled 'Checkmating Challenges for Chess Development in Bharat', announced an INR 65 crore development budget, structured monthly contracts and annual retainers for promising and elite Indian players, and laid out plans for an AICF-led national rating system aimed at one million registered players. India hosted the FIDE World Cup 2025 in Goa under his tenure, the event's return to India after twenty-three years. A landmark tripartite MoU between FIDE, the AICF and KIIT University was signed in Goa to promote chess in education across India, Asia and the world. Nitin is widely associated with the 'GenNext' transition in Indian sports administration — a younger, professionally-trained cohort stewarding India's sporting institutions at a time when the country is emerging as a global chess powerhouse, headlined by Gukesh Dommaraju's 2024 World Championship victory and India's double-gold performance at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
"Please welcome Shri Nitin Narang, President of the All India Chess Federation. A second-generation entrepreneur and investor, Nitin is the Founder & CEO of The Ideaz Factory and is publicly listed as a co-founder of Jist News, HearClear India and InstaPe. As the youngest-ever president of the AICF, he is leading a generational transformation of Indian chess."
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Reforming India's national sporting institutions — governance, player welfare, monetary contracts, schools-first growth and India as a global host.
Founder of Future Shift Labs. Disinformation, deepfakes and the impact of AI on democratic processes — research with Columbia Business School and ISB.
Lessons from Jist News (5M+ followers) and Khabar Gaon — designing news products for India's next half-billion users in vernacular languages.
A decade of work at The Ideaz Factory across state elections, public-affairs mandates and consumer brand-building.
Twenty-plus investments across payments, audio-tech, live entertainment and F&B. A view on what India will build, and back, between 2026 and 2035.
2024 was a great year for Indian chess — not just in individual achievements, but as a collective breakthrough.
Recognition matters. With a national rating system, players in Karnal or Ranchi will finally know who the top-rated player is — and pursue chess professionally.
We are a chess superpower.
The federation's role is to support players — to ensure they have the best facilities, coaching and encouragement. I feel a huge responsibility on my shoulders.
We would be happy to host the 2026 Candidates or the World Championship in India.
A torch that began its journey in India now moves towards Samarkand. From India to Uzbekistan, from one chess generation to the next, the flame moves forward.
Chess has a wonderful way of connecting people and nations. Chess diplomacy, quite literally.