Viswanathan Anand, (lang-ta?????????? ??????; pronounced IPA-all?i????n?a?t??n ?a?n?n?d?; born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess Grandmaster (International Grandmaster) and the current World Chess Champion (World Chess Championship). Anand is considered by many as one of the greatest chess players of all time.

Anand held the FIDE World Chess Championship from 2000 to 2002, at a time when the world title was split. He became the undisputed World Champion (World Chess Championship 2007) in 2007 and defended his title (World Chess Championship 2008) against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008. 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 then successfully defended his title in the World Chess Championship 2010 against Veselin Topalov, the winner of a challenger match against Gata Kamsky in February 2009. As the reigning champion, he will face the winner of the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012.

Anand is one of five players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating (Elo rating system) list, and in April 2007 at the age of 37, he became the oldest person to become world number-one (List of FIDE chess world number ones) for the first time. He was at the top of the world rankings five out of six times, from April 2007 to July 2008, holding the number-one ranking for a total of 15 months. In October 2008, he dropped out of the world top three ranking for the first time since July 1996.

In 2007, he was awarded Indias second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, making him the first sportsperson to receive the award in Indian history. He was also the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991-92, Indias highest sporting honor.