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.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the Rafales's arrival at a time when India's coronavirus crisis is getting worse.
Celebrating its 89th anniversary, the Indian Air Force on Friday put up a dazzling show with 75 aircraft, drawn from its vintage and modern fleet, performing skilful manoeuvres also marking the platinum jubilee year of India's Independence.
The Ambala district administration also prohibited people from flying private drones within the three-km radius of the air base.
Military officials, on the condition of anonymity, said the arrival of the Rafale jets will significantly enhance the IAF's overall combat capability and will send a clear message to India's 'adversaries'.
The fleet landed at Al Dhafra airbase on Monday in the United Arab Emirates after flying for over seven hours from the Merignac airbase. It was the only stopover by the jets while flying from France to India.
The IAF chief thanked the Indian government for negotiating the deal, bringing it to a fruitful conclusion and the French government, air force, and industry for ensuring delivery of the jets and training of the pilots.
'Anyone who should be worried about or critical about this new capability of the Indian Air Force, it should be those who want to threaten our territorial integrity'
Six Rafale trainer aircraft will carry RB series tail numbers which stand for Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria, the current Chief of Air Staff who played a key role as lead negotiator for the mega deal.
The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal.
Gandhi said he had made the statements in the heat of political campaigning which have been misused by his opponents.
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.
Out of 36 Rafale jets, 30 will be fighter jets and six will be trainers.
The minister also said that four cases of corruption in defence deals have been registered by the CBI since 2015.
The first batch of four Rafale aircraft will arrive in India by May 2020.
The sources said the IAF has briefed the defence ministry about the incident and that the Indian mission in Paris has been in touch with French authorities.
Dhanoa also hoped that the matter will be laid to rest saying that raking up such issues to get political gains, putting the interest of armed forces behind is not right.
The squadron, which operated from Bhatinda air base, was disbanded in 2016 after the IAF started gradual phasing out of Russian-origin Mig 21 jets.
Is the price of one fighter Rs 681 crore? Rs 686 crore? Rs 703 crore? Rs 1,063 crore? Rs 1,225 crore?
The political row had erupted after the National Democratic Alliance government inked the Rs 59,000-crore deal on September 23, 2016 to procure 36 Rafale jets from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation after a nearly seven-year exercise to procure 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft for the Indian Air Force did not fructify during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime.
It said the final induction ceremony will take place in second half of August. 'The first batch of five Indian Air Force Rafale is likely to arrive in India by end of July.The aircraft will be inducted at Air Force Station Ambala on July 29 subject to weather,' the IAF said.
Sources said a high-level team of the Indian Air Force is already in Paris to coordinate with the French officials on the handing over ceremony.
The BJP alleged that former French president Francois Hollande is part of the "nexus" to sabotage the procurement.
Delivery of a great operational machine must not get affected to settle political scores, says Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd).
As per earlier plans, Balakot operations in-charge and current Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa was to travel to receive the plane on September 19-20 from France.
'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.'
RM took stock of progress in production of the fighter jets whose delivery to India will begin in September next year.
"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee," he said, citing a newspaper report that claimed the Modi government's decision to buy 36 jets, instead of 126 planned earlier, jack up the price of each aircraft.
The BJP MP in her plea alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice.
The ceremony to hand over the first Rafale jet will take place on October 8, the foundation day of the Indian Air Force, the sources said.
"The PM defended his personal RAFALE bypass deal on 2 counts: 1. Better Price 2. Faster Delivery. Both have been demolished by the revelations in the Hindu today," he tweeted.
BJP leaders also took a dig at the former Congress president after the apex court asked him to be careful in future while closing a plea for contempt case against him for wrongly attributing certain comments on the Rafale deal to it.
On Thursday, five Rafale fighter jets touched down at Haryana's Ambala after covering a distance of nearly 7,000 km to join the IAF.
The newly-inducted aircraft will carry out the 'Vertical Charlie' formation.
Jaitley also dubbed Gandhi's attack on Modi as an attempt to shift the focus due to people's 'revulsion' towards the Congress party.
Having already received around 30 Rafale combat aircraft from France, the Indian Air Force would start upgrading its fleet of French-origin fighters from January 2022, with India specific enhancements.
A three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph said that it was not their job to go into the issue of pricing of the fighter planes.
The Congress has alleged that the government caused loss of over Rs 41,000 crore to the exchequer and endangered national security by bypassing the state-run HAL in favour of some businessman "friends".
Why did Modi bypass the Cabinet before he committed India to the Rafale deal?
'I can confirm that it is fake news,' Ziegler tweeted.
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