A coming-out party: Olympics, development and a statement to the world

If Ahmedabad is India's preferred candidate, as seems likely, hosting Olympics 2036 should give it a leg up: A bigger airport, a better metro network, more hotels, flyovers and so on, writes T N Ninan

Coming-out parties for debutantes have long gone out of fashion. But countries still have coming-out parties when they reach a certain level of income and development, and feel they need to make a statement to the world. That urge seems to come after per capita income reaches about $4,000, calculated using purchasing power parity and 1990 international dollars (the number would be higher with subsequent iterations of international dollars). And the party usually means hosting the summer Olympics.

In fact, when the modern Olympic movement was conceived in the final decade of the 19th century, the wealthier Western European countries and