Top seed Humpy, who won the world crown last year in Spain, will hope to continue in style at her happy hunting ground in the u-12 category, which features another Indian, Eesha Karavade, who meets Soylu Basak (Turkey) in the opening round.

The championship, to be played in five categories -- u-10, u-12, u-14, u-16, u-18 -- in both boys and girls section, will see ten World champions being crowned at the end of the 11-round Swiss system.

Young prodigy Tania Sachdev will lead India's challenge in girls u-14 category. Tania, who won a bronze medal in the u-12 event in the previous championship, will meet France's Melissa Levocic in the 1st round.

Tania will face a challenge from, among others, teammate Shraddha Somani, whoopens her campaign against Nesrin Gokdemir of Turkey.

The other Indian girls in fray are, Soumya Swaminathan (u-10), Y Pratibha (u-16) and Aarthie Ramaswamy (u-18).

Soumya is pitted against Luong Huyen Ngoc (Vietnam), Pratibha meets Katarina Jonoska and Aarthie faces Austrian Nadine Jauk.

In the boys' section, Indian hopes rely on P Harikrishna, who is vying for the World title in the u-16 category.

Harikrishna opens his campaign with white pieces against local lad Oscar Gutierrez Castillo.

Rahul Sangma (u-10), Sunil Rangarajan (u-12), MR Venkatesh (u-14) and Valay Parikh (u-18) will be the other Indian boys trying their luck.