India, Sept. 26 -- A year after Indian para athletes returned their best-ever haul at the Paris Paralympics (29 medals), the stage is set for another high-stakes competition with the World Para Athletics Championships coming to town in the refurbished Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Easily the largest athletics event ever hosted in India, the competition presents the hosts a golden opportunity to send their rapid rise in para sports into an unprecedented overdrive.

Medals are, without doubt, an undeniable marker of systemic growth and India's tally in recent years, both at Paralympics and World Championships, is a testament to things looking up. From a solitary medal at London Paralympics to 29 podium finishes last year in Paris, from two meda...