India’s Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that talks to buy fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation in a 2012 deal worth $12 billion are still underway but are complex.
India chose Dassault for “exclusive negotiations” for 126 Rafale jets, but successive deadlines to complete one of the world’s biggest airline contracts have slipped by.
“Given the complexity of the procurement case, the process of negotiations with Dassault Aviation on various aspects of the commercial proposal and provisions of draft contract is on,” Jaitley told parliament late Tuesday.
The cost of the deal was pegged at $12 billion but media reports have recently put it at around $15 billion.
Jaitley, named defence minister when the new right-wing government took power in May, was replying to a question in parliament about progress on the purchase.
India is in the midst of a $100-billion defence upgrade programme.
Military experts say India urgently needs the twin-engine multi-role fighters to maintain a combat edge against nuclear rival Pakistan, with which it has fought three wars. Indian military and armour is larger than Pakistan’s.
The Rafale, which would replace India’s Russian-made fleet of MiG-21 and MiG-27 planes, beat out bids from rivals such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Jaitley told parliament that the United States has overtaken Russia as the largest arms supplier to India in the last three years, followed by France and Israel.
The new government has raised the foreign investment cap on India’s defence industries to speed up modernisation of the military.
The production-sharing deal agreed by the previous Congress government would see Dassault supply 18 Rafales by 2015 in a “ready to fly” state.
The remaining 108 would be made by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd under technology transfer agreements with India, which is keen to boost homemade defence manufacturing.
In a boost for Dassault, the government last month said the deal complied fully with technology transfer requirements spelled out in the plane tender offer.
Wonderful, since India has an excess of $15 billion left over after feeding the 400 million people who live on less than $1/day, and has already overcome profuse illiteracy, pathetic maternity and child birth care, rampant TB, etc.
What about those people who don't have sufficient food to eat and don't have enough money to buy their daily bread. What about the ongoing violations of human rights where women are being victimized of rape and are not treated properly. Health issues are on hype, due to government's poor policy making and implementation. And the government is going to strike a deal for $12billions with France. Half of this money can also be utilized for making the socio infrastructure of India strong and capable enough to deal with people's problems.
It appears that we are really eager to launch a full scale war and that’s why we are making preparations for it. This is a reflection of our eagerness that we are kept on purchasing war fighting tools and completely overlook the humanitarian issues of our country. In actual terms, it looks that our statesmen love to ‘Play’ in terms of war rather than any human welfare projects. It’s an obsession of military and political personals rather than nation itself. This is really a weird approach to get into destructive weapons despite of human prosperity.
Earlier many other deals with France hit by massive corruption by Indian military officers. There is long list of corrupt Indian officers who were punished and later dismissed from their duties, Unfortunately, there is still major portion of hawkish Indian policy makers who still believe in arms accumulation in order to deter regional adversaries. Irrespective of major corruption scandals policy makers are investing huge in arms import. That's why India ranks top in arms import. The irony is that global powers are still silent on Indian aggressive actions.
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