Second seed Neelothpal Dass was held to a draw by V R Kamble of Maharashtra, to be pushed to joint third place with three points. Sasikiran continued his great from by winning his fourth straight game in 34 moves. He took advantage of his opponent G Vinod's mistake on the 17th move in lasker variation that forced the latter to resign.

Results after 4th round: Sasikiran (4) bt Vinod Gopal (3); Tejas Bakre (4) bt Karthekeyan (3); S Kidambee (4) bt Pramod (3); R Karthik (3.5) bt Rahul (3); V R Kamble (3) drew Neelotpal Dass (3); Vikramjit (3.5) bt Ravi Shankar (2.5); Satyapragyan (3.5) bt Shashi Kant Kutwal (2.5); Vikas Sharma (3) drew Rohan Shandilya (3); Rishipal Singh (3.5) bt Updesh Sharma (2.5); P Harikrishna (3) bt B Handique (2);Abhey Karnataki (3) bt Navnitha Krishnan; Naveen Jain (3) bt Yashpal (2).

Manasi, Nisha share lead

THALASSERY: Manasi Dadarkar gave the top seed Swati Ghate a drubbing, while International Woman Master Nisha Mohota of West Bengal humbled yesterday's giant-killer Neha Singh of Bihar to emerge joint-leaders with five points each at the end of six rounds of the 13th National junior girls chess championship here today.

Sasinas Haritha of Kerala got away with a lucky draw on the third board as her Tamil Nadu opponent M R Sangeetha failed for the second consecutive day to convert her commanding position into a victory. Haritha, Sangeetha, Neha Singh and Shraddha Samani of Maharashtra shared the second position with 4.5 points each.

Important results: Nisha Mohota 5 bt Neha Singh 4.5, Manasi Dadarkar 5 bt Swati Ghate 4, M R Sangeetha 4.5 drew Sasinas Haritha 4.5, Pallavi Shah 4 drew Aswini Pachapurkar 4, Shraddha Samani 4.5 bt Pannaga Magal 3.5, Aarthie Ramaswamy 4 bt M Kasthuri 3, YPrathibha 3.5 drew S Cynthia 3.5, J E Kavitha 3 lost to S Sujatha 4, Chitra Sridhar 4 bt J Megha 3, K Preethi 4 bt H Nilavoli 3, N Sandhya 3 lost to Pazha Sivakami 4, M Priyadarshini 3.5 drew M Kavana 3, Eesha Karvade 3.5 bt Mili Sarkar 2.5, Manjula James 3.5 bt B Sini 2.5, Anuprita Patil 3 drew Suma Sarkar 3.

NT Rama Rao leads

AHMEDABAD: N T Rama Rao of Orissa maintains lead in under-7 boys category of 12th National Children's Chess Championship at the end of seventh rounds being played here at Rifle Club, Ahmedabad.

Point Under-7 boys (seventh round):1 NT Rama Rao (Ori) 6.5, Prubuddha Ghosh (WB), S Kenedy Singh (Manipur) and Y Sandeep (AP) 6 each, Prashant Singh (Bih) 5.5; Points after 7th round: S Bhattacharya (WB) & K Phanichandra (AP) 6 points, S Ratnakar (Maha), Bhakti Kulkarni (Goa), Janani (TN), P Uthra (TN) and S Parkhi (Maha) 5 points each, D Patnakar (Maha), P Ratnam (Bih) and C H Savetha (TN) 4.5 points each.