Rafale is not enough!
- Pratik Badgujar 3 Minute Read It is 29th July 2020 today and India has received her first batch of 5 out of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft purchased from France. This inclusion of Rafale will boost the combat capabilities of the Indian Air Force (IAF) significantly. Frankly speaking, I am not much happy at the moment. After all, we have just purchased Rafale and not developed ourselves. I understand that purchasing war equipment is not like buying groceries. A lot of diplomatic touches are required to convince a country to sell its war equipment to us and hence completing a military purchase is a victory of Indian Diplomacy in some sense. Rafale was first inducted in French Navy in 2000 and was inducted in its Air Force in 2008. So, by that standard, we are still at least 12 years behind the French Air Force. In these 12 years, French defense companies/military research must have certainly advanced further. India produces the largest number of engineers in the world. The numb...