Akshay Kapoor wrote:Agree Admiral. But who will sort out Pappu and Soniaji.
Saar, not to worry. Pappu has derailed the Rafale deal enough to not have the GOI order a second tranche prior to the May 2019 elections. When the elections are over - and regardless of which ever party wins - more Rafale fighters will come.
If it is the BJP that wins, it will give the Prime Minister enough political capital to go ahead with a follow on order.
If it is the Congress that wins, Pappu will open the Rafale file, find nothing and quietly close the file.
But the greatest push for a follow on Rafale deal, will come from the IAF itself and that will be hard pressed for either political party to ignore. It is one thing to evaluate an aircraft during a competition or go for a ride in France or read a glossy brochure. It is however a whole other ballgame, when you operate that platform day in and day out. The realization of the capability that the Rafale offers has cemented in with IAF planners, however the true realization will come only when the Rafale joins an active squadron.
I am posting a a breakdown of the deal below. Any logical person - unless they are biased and motivated towards another platform - will tell you there is no scam. But the Congress keeps bringing up nonsensical claims like they negotiated a cheaper deal (there was no deal in the first place, with AK Antony leaving the decision to the next govt); that Egypt and Qatar paid less for their Rafales than India (despite the fact the deal with both the other countries are night and day, compared to the Indian deal).
As per wiki chacha...
*EACH* Meteor costs £2 Million (or $2.8 million in 2018 dollars).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile)
*EACH* SCALP cruise missile costs £790,000 (or $1.1 million in 2018 dollars).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Shadow
For the Mica missile, one can refer to a price paid by India for the Mirage 2000 upgrade...
India approves Mica missile buy, but slips fighter decision
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... on-366605/
The reports suggested the deal values at about $1.2 billion for 450 to 500 missiles, although MBDA declined to comment on either figure. However, if accurate the buy would work out at a cost of approximately $2.7 million per round.
And this is the unit price that India paid for the Rafale, compared to Egypt and Qatar. Where is the scam?
To bring up
depriving-HAL-of-jobs is laughable. Perhaps the Congress party got a bout of amnesia, because Dassault advised that they cannot guarantee a HAL-built Rafale and that too *ONLY* for screwdrivergiri. Also to state that DRAL (Dassault Reliance Aviation Ltd) will be building the Rafale, instead of HAL is equally laughable because all 36 Rafales are being delivered in a fly-away condition from Merignac, France.
I ask again, where is the SCAM?
Akshay-ji, none of the below is directed at you.
To BRF's import lobby - here is something to think about;
1) If Dassault has stated that they cannot guarantee a HAL-built Rafale, what do you think Boeing will do? Who is going to build the "make-do" F-18 for the IAF? If it is not HAL, will it be Tata? Will that not deprive HAL of jobs? Why is RaGA eerily silent about Tata's AH-64 Apache facility?
2) If the MoD could not afford 126 Rafales, how do you think they will afford a minimum of 100 "make-do" F-18s? The *STARTING* price of the F-18 deal is rumoured to be around $15 - $16 billion for a minimum of 100 birds. From where is the GOI expected to get $15 - $16 billion for "make-do" F-18s?
3) Apart from a follow-on Rafale deal (of two more squadrons), any other deal will only delay the re-equipping of IAF squadrons. A follow-on Rafale deal is the only solution and large scale manufacturing of the Tejas in different avatars. That is the only path forward.
Please come down to earth and realize the fallacy of your argument. For all the hype of the Indo-American strategic partnership, it is France that ultimately stole the show. That is proving a bitter pill for you to swallow and thus you folks jump at every opportunity to peddle an American bird.