India begins manufacturing parts for Rafale fighter jets in Nagpur - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India begins manufacturing parts for Rafale fighter jets in Nagpur.

In a first, India has started manufacturing parts for Rafale, some of which could even be used on the 36 French fighter jets ordered by the Narendra Modi government in 2016.

The first set of doors that cover the twin engines of the fighter jets has come out of the Nagpur facility, which is a joint venture of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence and French firm Dassault Aviation
“We are seeing India has one of the drivers of the Dassault Aviation products. Be it the Falcon business jet or now the Rafale, every product in the future will have an Indian connection,” an official of the French defence major told ThePrint.
Defence sources said the idea is to scale up production of Rafale parts in the coming months.
Asked if the doors will be fitted on board the Indian Rafale fighter jets, another company official said, “It is a may or may not be. It all depends on the rate of production and the quantity of parts available back in France. But the parts manufactured in Nagpur will go up on the Rafale for sure.”
First 4 Rafale jets expected to arrive in May :
The first four Rafale jets are expected to arrive in India in May. While one squadron of the Rafale fighter jets will be based in Ambala, the other would be in Hasimara, West Bengal.
Industry sources said that what works for foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers is that production in India helps them to meet offset obligations and also to procure materials and products at a much lower rate since the labour cost is less in the country.
The Nagpur facility of Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL) was initially making only cockpits for the French manufacturer’s Falcon business jets, besides other parts.
The facility was only meant to manufacture components for Falcon jets and not for the Rafale jets.
But in June 2019, ThePrint had reported that Dassault Aviation is likely to start manufacturing components of the Rafale fighter jets at its India facility, with the wares destined for global customers.
Dassault and Reliance announced their joint venture and the creation of DRAL on 3 October 2016, barely two weeks after India signed a 7.878 billion euro deal for 36 Rafale jets in a flyaway condition.
The DRAL facility was inaugurated in October 2017, in the presence of Dassault CEO Eric Trappier and Anil Ambani. (Source: defencenews.in)


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India begins manufacturing parts for Rafale fighter jets in Nagpur.

Rafale case: Will first decide on Centre's preliminary objections, says SC - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Rafale case: Will first decide on Centre's preliminary objections, says SC.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the petitioners seeking review of its order to focus on the preliminary objections regarding admissibility of the leaked documents

The Supreme Court made it clear on Thursday that it will decide first on the preliminary objections raised by the Centre and then go into the facts of the Rafale fighter jet deal case. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the petitioners seeking review of its order to focus on the preliminary objections regarding admissibility of the leaked documents.

"Only after we decide the preliminary objection raised by the Centre, we will go into the facts of the case," said the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph.
At the outset, Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, claimed privilege over documents pertaining to the Rafale fighter jet deal with France and told the Supreme Court that no one can produce them in the court without the permission of the department concerned.
Venugopal referred to section 123 of the Evidence Act and provisions of RTI Act to buttress his claim. He told the top court that no one can publish documents which relate to national security as the security of the State supercedes everything.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, one of the petitioners seeking review, opposed the submission and said that the Rafale deal documents, which AG says are privileged, have been published and are already in public domain.
Bhushan said that provisions of RTI Act say public interest outweighs other things and no privilege can be claimed except for documents which pertain to intelligence agencies.
There is no government-to-government contract in purchasing Rafale jets as there is no sovereign guarantee extended to India by France in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, Bhushan said.
He also said the Press Council of India Act provides provisions for protecting sources of journalists. (Source: The Business Standard)


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Rafale case: Will first decide on Centre's preliminary objections, says SC.

How Rafale row bombed a groundbreaking move that would've changed Indian defence. - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

How Rafale row bombed a groundbreaking move that would've changed Indian defence.

The defence ministry has been unable to implement groundbreaking changes in policies on production and offsets, despite a budgetary speech promise and detailed inputs by the industry that saw the proposed amendments as key enablers.

Hit by the Rafale controversy, the defence ministry has not moved to amend its offsets policy since May this year, when a draft was presented for comments. (The opposition has targeted proposed offsets to Reliance Defence in the Rafale deal.) A new defence production policy that was promised in 2018 has met a similar fate, with limited forward movement since the draft was issued in March.
The proposed changes would have allowed the establishment of a fund regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to promote startups to meet the offsets obligations of foreign vendors that are worth billions of dollars.
They also offer major incentives for investing in the defence manufacturing corridors of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
However, after several rounds of consultations with stakeholders, including industry bodies, the ministry has not been able to move ahead on implementing the new rules. Internal dissent and opposing views within the ministry are believed to have come in the way of moving forward.
The absence of incentives on offsets has also resulted in the defence manufacturing corridors remaining stagnant, despite verbal commitments by some players to set up shop. “Unless the offsets policy is clear and gives a defined multiplier credit, foreign vendors will not venture and cannot make plans for investments in the corridor,” an industry analyst who did not wish to be named told ET.
The draft amendments also proposed that foreign companies can invest a significant part of their obligations in Sebi-regulated funds for defence, aerospace and internal security, something that has been welcomed by several global players. This also has hit a wall. Waiting-game-123
Offsets have ended up being a tricky issue for the government, given that at least three big cases have come under the scanner for alleged corruption, including the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal and the now-defunct Offsets India Solutions (OIS) that was promoted by fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
The bigger disappointment for the Indian private sector, however, has been the lack of progress in promulgating a new Defence Production Policy 2018 that was announced as an “industry-friendly” move in this year’s budget.
The new policy is meant to promote production by the private and public sector in collaboration with each other and with micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). While a wellappreciated draft has been shared with stakeholders, a lack of consensus seems to have stalled progress. Rafale-infograph-123
Some of the initiatives mentioned in the policy — such as a defence startup challenge and a defence investors cell — have been implemented individually but insiders say that a new policy will be impossible to notify this calendar year. There is lack of clarity on whether it will be ready ahead of the next budget either.
The draft policy that called for enhanced foreign direct investment (FDI) for domestic production also spelt out the government’s target of generating 3 million jobs in the next seven years and taking India to the top five countries in the world in the aerospace and military sectors.
“If even a policy is taking so long to be finalised, what is the chance that the targets can ever be met?” said an analyst, reflecting a growing sentiment within the industry. The draft policy has an ambitious target for the defence sector in India by 2025, aiming for an extraordinary $5 billion of exports, besides achieving self-reliance in complex systems such as fighter aircraft, autonomous weapon systems and small arms.(Source:defencenews.in)


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How Rafale row bombed a groundbreaking move that would've changed Indian defence.

First Made for India Rafale set to soar this month - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

First Made for India Rafale set to soar this month.

Amid political controversy in India, the first Made-For-India Rafale fighter jet—RB008—is all set to take off on its inaugural flight in France this month end. Earlier, the flight was scheduled to take off on Sunday, 14 October, but it was shifted to the end of October because of unspecified reasons.

“This will be the first of the 36 Rafale fighter jets ordered by India,” said a top Ministry of Defence source. The fighter jet has been numbered as RB 008, after Air Marshal Rakesh Bhadauria, who is Air Officer Commanding in Chief, Training Command of the Indian Air Force. Air Marshal Bhadauria was the Deputy Chief of Indian Air Force and head of the Cost Negotiating Committee when the deal was signed in 2016.
There are eight such planes in the series—from RB001 to RB008, all twin-seaters. Besides, there are 28 other fighter jets under the BS series (BS001 to BS028), which are single-seaters, numbered after Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force.
Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar, who had flown the French Rafale (Test Bed B302), a twin-seater, on 22 September, when he was Deputy Chief of Air Staff, said: “It’s a good aircraft.
I felt satisfied. And now the IAF should get all the Rafale fighter jets as per the delivery schedule.”
An Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) four-member project management team (PMT) is camping in France for the last one year to monitor the production and India specific enhancements of the 36 Rafale fighter jets.
After this inaugural flight, the first Rafale fighter jet is scheduled to be delivered to India in September 2019. In a reply given to the Rajya Sabha in July this year, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said: “Delivery of Rafale fighter jets in a fly-away condition along with associated equipment and weapons will commence from September 2019 and will be completed by April 2022.”
These jets have 13 India specific enhancements. These include helmet mounted display, low band jammer, radar enhancement, radio altimeter, towed decoy system and ability to start and operate from high altitude air space.
This month’s scheduled inaugural flight follows soon after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit to France, during which she went to Argenteuil, where the manufacturing plant of Dassault Aviation, makers of the fighter planes, is located.
Even as the inaugural flight is all set to take place, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday met HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) employees, claiming that Dassault Aviation, the French manufacturer, which makes the Rafale jet, has been pressured by the government to select the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as its offset partner, instead of state-run HAL. (Source: defencenews.in)


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First Made for India Rafale set to soar this month.