European military consortium EADS Defence and Security on Tuesday said it will open a research and development centre in Bangalore within two years that will provide employment to 200 Indian engineers.
"We are calculating very hard. There is a lot of work going on. I expect (in) another four weeks, we should be able to wrap it up", Browne told media persons amid intense flurry among the two remaining contenders Eurofighter and Dassault's Rafale.
In its report tabled in Parliament, the national auditor said the Dassault Aviation and the MBDA proposed in September 2015 to discharge 30 per cent of their offset obligations by offering high technology to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), but the two firms are yet to do it.
At present, the IAF has three MiG-21 squadrons with a total of around 50 aircraft, according to officials.
Sitharaman said the weapon systems, avionics and other key add-ons to the Rafale aircraft, will be 'much superior' than that negotiated by the UPA.
Notably, the IAF recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the IIT-Madras to develop indigenous solutions to maintain various weapon systems.
"The HAMMER missiles are in the process of being integrated with the LCA Tejas and it will significantly enhance its capability to take out hardened targets from stand-off distances," government sources told ANI.
Six companies from five countries are competing to sell India military hardware, and the winners will indicate the directions of India's strategic vision.
The most important changes in DPP-2008 relate to the new offset policy, which will immediately impact offset proposals for India's Rs 47,000-crore purchase of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).
The new fighters will replace the IAF's ageing MiG-21 jets, the bulk of which are expected to be phased out by 2009.
Everybody talks of China as the real threat, but we aren't even building a decisive capability against Pakistan, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The outgoing Tejas chief said the aircraft will join the IAF fleet by 2021-22.
The Rafale jet deal, signed on September 23, 2016, in the frame of an Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and France, has been in news over the last few months.
SAAB's Sea Gripen constitutes a new option as the INS Vikrant's light fighter
The situation that developed in eastern Ladakh last year required acclimatisation of a large number of IAF personnel and stretching of equipment to limits, but the force is "much better prepared" now in case there is a "long haul", Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari said on Thursday.
French investigative journal Mediapart has made fresh claims that alleged bogus invoices were used that enabled French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation to pay at least 7.5 million euros in secret commissions to a middleman to help it secure the Rafale deal with India.
Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, has sugarcoated his bid to import 106 basic trainer aircraft from Pilatus Aircraft Co, by proposing that Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd build the trainers in Bengaluru to blueprints supplied by the Swiss company.
While its operating radius remains secret, a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates it can easily strike targets 1,000 kilometres away and return to base.
"The IAF played a vital role in five of the seven phases of the general elections, flying over 1,000 hours in over 1,750 sorties," it said.
'We were against politicisation of the defence acquisition process. It was a question of capability of the air force'
Though Singh will receive the first of the 36 Rafale jets on Tuesday, the first batch of four aircraft will come to India only by May next year.
In all likelihood, the next conventional Chinese attack on India would be preceded by a massive cyber attack designed to cripple Indian networks and interfere with our disaster-relief programmes.
In rebranding the F-16 into the F-21, Lockheed Martin appears to have accepted what many have warned it for years: That the IAF would never buy a fighter whose very name is associated across India with the Pakistan Air Force which has operated the F-16 since the 1980s.
Capable of flying at Mach 2.5 (two-and-a-half times the speed of sound), the F-15EX is the world's fastest fighter aircraft. It carries 13.5 tonnes of weapons load, more than the Rafale or the Sukhoi-30MKI.
The IAF has just 33 squadrons, 9 short of the 42 squadrons needed to tackle China and Pakistan together, says Ajai Shukla.
'The greatest loss from replacing the 126 Rafale proposal with the 2016 contract for 36 Rafales might not be the extra money paid, but the opportunity that India's aerospace industry lost of obtaining access to critical aviation technologies and manufacturing skills.'
American armaments dominated the defence services's show of weaponry.
The aircraft flew out from the airbase in the French port city of Bordeaux and will cover a distance of nearly 7,000 km with air-to-air refuelling and a single stop in the United Arab Emirates before arriving at Ambala airbase on Wednesday, officials said.
Three people were killed after the MiG-21 fighter aircraft crashed into a house in Hanumangarh in Rajasthan shortly after it took off for a routine training sortie from the Air Force Station at Suratgarh.
"We don't take chances with the medical fitness of a pilot," he said at a press conference.
The air force has moved its critical frontline assets including the Sukhoi-30MKI, Mirage 2000 and Jaguar fighter aircraft fleet to advanced positions where they can fly in at a very short notice to carry out operations.
What the new defence minister does with the Rafale fighter jet deal will decide if India wants to build genuine, long-term defence capability through an indigenous product that slashes life-cycle costs, or opt for glitzy signing ceremony with foreign vendors that would please the public, says Ajai Shukla.
In the light of India's increasingly 'darkening' threat environment and the convergence of strategic interests between China and Pakistan, the IAF's declining combat capabilities are a cause for concern, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The defence minister sat in the rear cockpit of the customised Rafale fighter jet with tail number RB-001 and was flown by Philippe Duchateau, head test pilot of Dassault Aviation.
Singh received the aircraft at the Rafale fighter jet handing-over ceremony at Merignac in the presence of French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly. Members of the top military brass of France as well as senior officials of Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, were also present at the ceremony.
Here is how the two countries stack up militarily, according to a report in AlJazeera.com.
The Indian Air Force's on Friday conducted day-night demonstration of its combat and fire power in Pokhran, which was witnessed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to the Pentagon report, the PLA is creating options for dissuading, deterring, and defeating external intervention in the Indo-Pacific region.
The plea also seeks details of comparative prices during UPA and NDA rule.
