India must start competing, and not participating, in Olympics -- honestly

When the Indian athletes, seeking to improve upon the six-medal haul bagged at the 2012 London Olympic Games, managed only two at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog came up with a plan for India to win 50 medals at the 2024 Olympics.

If that happens three years from now, all those involved in the making and implementing that scheme, besides the athletes who would win those 50 medals in Paris, would deserve the highest accolade of the country. They would thoroughly deserve all the prizes for what would probably be the biggest jump in terms of sudden improvement in the history of the world's biggest sports extravaganza, Olympics, rather in the history of mankind.

Whether or not that happens is another question altogether. Let us first check the ground reality. India has won a grand total of 28 medals, nine of them being gold, in the 121 years of Olympic participation. On the other hand, American swimming juggernaut Michael Phelps has won 28 medals, 23 of them gold, in just four Olympics (2004-2016). These figures tell a thousand tales of America's and India's sporting system/history. All arguments end there. Period.