srai "That would bankrupt Indian defense budget. You are easily looking at around $40 billion+ deal for 200 Rafales with ToT and license production. Where will that much money come from for a single item purchase when the needs of the Indian Armed Forces are many? Money for indigenous R&D would dry up among other things."
+1. Of course, there are those 9 Qatari M2Ks that can fill the gap....
GoI/MoD will dilli/dally. It's what they do. The F16 line will close down and then all of a sudden we'll see them as a great deal but the resurrection will cost 3x so we'll look for used F16s after having spent a few years trying to negotiate ToT with LM on the F35, buy 36 off the shelf to avoid embarrassment.
The dilli dalliers did this with M2K, discovered a sudden desire for more C17s after the line closed and are now hunting down spare USAF capability.
As someone said, "when you don't know where you want to go, any road will get you there."