Tuesday, April 14, 2015

India Rethinking Rafale Fighter Deal

NEW DELHI – India is rethinking its long-delayed 126-aircraft Medium-Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, and may opt to scrap the fighter purchase in favor of government-to-government sales, since negotiations under the existing request for proposals (RFP) had “gone into a loop with no solution in sight,” according to India’s defense minister.
Barely two days after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Paris, negotiated with the French government to buy 36 Dassault Rafale fighter jets in flyaway condition under a separate deal, Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar on April 13 categorically stated that “if India goes in for additional Rafale fighters, it will also be through government-to-government deals.”
India has already signed deals worth more than $6 billion with the U.S. for 12 C-130J and 10 C-17 airlifters without any open tender or competition.
The “government-to-government route is better than the RFP path for acquisition of strategic platforms,” Parrikar says.
The defense minister refrained from saying the original deal had been scrapped altogether, but quipped that “a car can not run on two paths simultaneously ... The other road [MMRCA] had a lot of problems.”
13/04/2015 Jay Menon,Amy Svitak/Aerospace Daily & Defence Report
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