I have different take on M2000 production line transfer to India and we made the right choice to not go with that. Operationally, maybe it was good decision to shore up some numbers in short term, however not a strategic long-term decision.
French basically wanted to milk India for outdated fighter and use that money for Rafale R&D. I’ll give you an example, Dassault would have made lot of money whenever India wanted to integrate any home-grown weapon to that platform with exorbitant consulting fees. I’m glad someone has the foresight to see this.
Country the size of India does need a home-grown clean sheet fighter, we have it in Tejas & AMCA and these two may be late, but we’ll get there eventually. When a third world country like India embark on something complex, linear progression is not possible, and I commend India for not throwing away this development and go for foreign fighter as a quick fix. Perfect example is that Danish component in MK1A, I’m glad these things happen, and we keep on indigenising these.
Have a good one.