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Rafale Deal: Meeting Defence Needs or PR for Modi?

632 views · Published 22 April 2015 · 10:11 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: NewsClickin · 2015 · News & Politics

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The Modi government has recently made a quick Government to Government (G2G) deal with France for acquiring off the shelf 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts. The prices --it appears -- are yet to be negotiated. Newsclick interviewed D. Raghunandan, President, All India People's Science Network and a defence analyst to discuss the deal. According to Raghunandan, the deal being a G2G instead of public bidding as originally envisaged, is back to arbitrary decision making on defence deals.  Reverting back to such a policy does not have any transparency and opens up a huge scope for corruption in defence deals.
    Specific to the deal, Raghunandan stated that it contradicts Modi’s much hyped policy of “Make in India”. Originally, the deal was to have 126 aircrafts, out of which 108 would have been made in India by HAL. Dassault, the makers of Rafale, did not agree to technology transfer and have now have been rewarded with outright purchase of 36 aircrafts.  Instead of the original tender which involved 126 aircrafts, 36 Rafales bought in this way, neither meets the airforce's needs of replacing almost 200 MIGs nor the long-term objective of India developing a self-reliant defence industry. All it has done is help Modi make a big PR splash in Paris, at a great cost to India's defence and procurement policy.

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