Is India Buying the Rafale fighter jets a scam?

The Indian Air Force always boasted of a good fighting force as evident by performances at various war theatres and multinational exercises. But the IAF has been demanding for quite some time some fancy new aircrafts as the workhorse of the IAF have been the Russian fighters which are aging, to say the least. The Govt. of India has been largely apathetic to the calls for modernization as repeatedly we have shown a chutzpah for scams when it came to defense procurements.

But come 2008 and after many false starts the whole process started and it took another 4 years before Rafale from France won the contract satisfying the IAF and being the lowest bidder. But there was a catch. Once the Govt. started negotiating it was found the initial bid of ₹42 thousand crores also had a mention of some miscellaneous items for which extra money was supposed to be paid. Given the experience of the Govt. with the Scorpene submarine deal again with the French, the Govt. did become wary because in the former case the French put some critical components in that head which led to cost escalation to the tune of ₹2000 crores.

So, upon further digging the Govt. was quoted a price of approximately ₹90 thousand crores which is roughly double the initial quoted price. Though this final value can't be verified because the information is hazy and different values have been thrown about (15-20 billion USD). But for the sake of argument lets take a median value of 18 billion USD which would peg the cost of each aircraft at approximately 143 million USD. To put things in perspective the Sukhoi-30MK1 has a list price of 47 million USD each, the nearest competitor the Eurofighter typhoon is listed at 70 million USD each and the most expensive aircraft the F-35B is pegged at 135.6 million USD each. Mind you all these prices are minus the fancy armaments and radar and just accounts for the no-frills fighter aircraft. So it does feel like the French did pull a fast one on the Indian authorities and must have exploited a loophole in the tender document to get the lowest bid in to win the contract. Do I smell corruption? Yes, maybe? I really don't have access to the information to conclusively say so.

Then there was news about how the French were playing hardball about manufacturing the fighters in India with the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The initial plan was to buy 18 aircrafts directly from France and the rest 108 would be manufactured in India but news started emerging that the French didn't want to guarantee the planes manufactured in India which further delayed the negotiations further. Then came the NDA govt. and with Manohar Parikkar as the Defense Minister. It was hoped that a highly educated Defense minister would do wonders for the procurement process and make it faster in general. The minister turned out to be a loose cannon and kept dropping figures in the public domain as if they were hot potatoes. But then on a visit to France the PM made an announcement of a Govt. to Govt. deal which cut through the red tape and made the process fast. The announced deal was for 36 Rafale jets at a price of 9.294 billion USD which pegs the cost of each aircraft at 258 million USD.

The Govt. parrotted the line that the price has been brought down from 18 billion USD to around 8 billion USD( I am quoting the median cost I had assumed rather than the cost quoted by the Govt. which is 12 billion USD.). In the meanwhile, Egypt had placed an order for 24 jets at a price of 5.9 billion USD (245 million USD per jet) which works out to be more expensive than the Indian deal ( Keeping in account the more technology transfer costs and inflation over the years). The govt. did put out statements regarding the higher per unit cost of the aircraft and attributed the increase due to better customization of the aircraft, better weapon systems and more technologies being transferred as opposed to the earlier deal.

Now that I have kind-off summarized the whole deal I will pen down my thoughts. Even if I assumed that the price of the deal to acquire 126 jets would have been 20 billion USD wouldn't it have a better deal? Because the majority of the order would have been manufactured in India which would have led to employment generation and tax generation for the Govt. which in this case has been lost entirely. In the end not only we ended up paying more for fewer aircrafts but also lost on a substantial revenue. Also now the components for maintenance have to be sourced either from France or from the newly minted J-V between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Defence which does which may point towards some sort of lobbying (nay bribes). The sad part is the people suffering is the armed forces with the politicians' well-playing politics over silly gains. When the defense minister of the country says he can't get something for the armed forces because it is too expensive doesn't really inspire any confidence. Secondly I really never understood why the Govts. are so secretive about making the details of such deals public. I don't think that there is too much-classified info in there. The NDA govt would like us to believe that ordering 36 jets saved us tonnes of money but what about the 90 odd aircrafts we are short off and endangering our pilots by making them fly the vintage MiG's which were bought in the 80's?


Oh here are some of the articles I used while writing this.:

1: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/How-Narendra-Modi-reworked-Rafale-deal-and-why-its-a-winner/articleshow/46892688.cms
2: http://www.rediff.com/news/report/the-miscellaneous-blunder-in-indias-rafale-deal/20140916.htm
3: http://www.thehindu.com/specials/in-depth/All-you-need-to-know-about-the-Rafale-deal/article14243993.ece
4: https://www.newslaundry.com/2016/05/02/scams-are-an-indian-tradition
5: http://www.opindia.com/2016/09/rafale-deal-is-it-really-an-exorbitant-deal-as-claimed-by-experts/
6: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/India-France-ink-%E2%82%AC7.87-billion-agreement-for-36-Rafales/article14995775.ece
7: http://www.firstpost.com/world/rafale-deal-confirmed-an-overview-of-its-history-and-what-this-means-for-india-3014872.html

Indigo trying to buy Air India!Does it make sense?

The Govt. of India recently decided to privatize the state-run airline: Air India. In its heydays, Air India with its mascot of Maharajah was known for luxury and opulence. But with the advent of economic liberalization, a bevy of airlines invaded the Indian airspace. All of a sudden the state-run behemoth was caught napping and was too heavy to compete with the nimble competitors. The Govt, didn't help by running the business in a way Govt, departments are run and poorly equipped bureaucrats kept running the show, The ministers aided to the demise of the airline by making wrong decisions again and again.

So after more than 10 billion dollars of taxpayers money being wasted, the govt finally realized that it has no business of running a business, The owners of Air India before nationalization were tipped to be in the reckoning to buy back. And then the cat was set among the pigeons and India's biggest success story in the airline space, Indigo decided to enter the fray. Indigo is a new age airline which adhered to the low-cost model and reaped in huge profits in a business area where most Indian airline companies were bleeding money. No wonder they have grown to be the largest airline in India despite facing significant regulatory challenges by our Govt.

The media is kind off speculating has the David really have the capability to devour the Goliath? The jury is still out and despite my limited financial knowledge, I believe it might be a good choice for Indigo. Well, first thing why it makes a good investment is that like the Gulf-based carriers India can effectively implement the hubs and spoke model for international air travel. Secondly, with the laptop ban in place for middle-east based airlines India has the perfect potential to attract the business customers who are desperate to be connected at all times. This US travel ban has really opened up the international market and the presence of wide-bodied long-haul aircraft in the Air-India roster gives Indigo the perfect recipe to replicate the model of middle-eastern based airline companies.

The potential is endless and India which missed the bus with respect to becoming a hub for international travel has been got a good opportunity.

A new scam in West Bengal , real estate is the new Saradha!!

Recently my Father-in-law called me. He was planning to buy a flat in Kolkata and a particular development was coming out on the outskirts of New Town called the Dharitri Urbania. I looked up the website and behold I was transported to a modern city with open spaces, rooftop gardens and various academies run by celebrities like a cricket academy mentored by Darren Lehmann (http://dharitri-infra.com/blog.html ).  And did I mention the prices? Well, they were eye-poppingly affordable like 11.50 lakhs for 2BHK apartments and 7 lakhs for 1 BHK apartments. In this period of literally unaffordable houses, this was too good to be true. Though this was a pre-launch offer and being endorsed by famous Bengali film actor Jeet everything looked perfect. I leave you with the sights from the project.

Dharitri Universia(Source: http://dharitri-infra.com/)

Then I went and checked some reviews on common floor .com and here take a look at the first screenshot.

Screenshot of reviews from MouthShut.com

If you read the first review and you will be impressed how much the buyer has loved his investments with a plethora of amenities and a swimming pool with people spending quality time there. I have another screenshot of comments from the same site and here it goes.

Screenshot of reviews from MouthShut.com

And a line from the review caught my eye and I quote "The Bungalow is pretty spacious and the car parking space along with the garden gives a feeling of residing in a dream house.". All good great reviews and a perfect project to invest in Right? Wrong. Because then my Father-in-Law burst the bubble. He had been to the site and it was basically kind of agricultural land with no sign of any construction activity. No sample flats, no demarcation of the land just a few tables and umbrellas with staff from the company.  Now I think it's time to look further and I checked with another site the indianrealestateforum.com . And what I came across were not too good reviews and people asking pretty basic but uncomfortable questions. And lo behold somebody from the company replied but instead of addressing the concerns started threatening them. It became very clear to me that they were paid reviews. Every good review had dwelt on the fact how great the project was and it fulfilled their dreams but in reality, there was not a single brick even put in place.


I looked up the Govt. of India Site for corporate affairs about the company and was surprised to find the company has a paid-up capital of just 5 lakhs and an authorized capital of 10 lakhs (Please refer to the document). And again when I try to check the land record and for project approval details I get no response other than visit our offices for details when a simple project approval number would have sufficed. The project approval number is issued by the Govt which basically means that the project has been approved by the Govt. I wonder is the state Govt of Trinamool Congress hand-in-hand with the developers and turning a blind eye to the scam? Because I was informed they are putting up huge billboards and big advertisements in newspapers. I would request the buyers to be careful before giving them any money and the state Govt to look into the issue so no ordinary citizen is duped of their hard earned money.

My review of the return of 'THE' Arnab Goswami and Republic World tv

So the moment we have been waiting (dreading) for has finally arrived. The quiet TV screens at our homes have sputtered with life since Arnab is back. The sound despite being zero is blasting throughout the house and the voice who says missed being in our living room is back. So the great nationalist, patriot, anti-corruption crusader and the ultimate anti-establishment man is back. And to be fair he started off with a bang. I will address 3 major stories which he has covered in the last 4 days.

The first story which he broke was some tapes of conversation between the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and jailed Bihar strongman Shahabuddin. Well the tapes were pretty boring and just reinforced the fact that how Bihar is run more by influence of criminals rather than by law. All the mainstream media news channels as well as print media chose to ignore the story and confined them to inner pages of newspapers. Despite Arnab being not in good books of other media personalities this story needed to be picked up and debetd by other channels. On the other hand Arnab went on and on that how Shahbuddin is controlling the Govt. via Lalu and criminals are running the show. The debate was all black and white and focussed on how helpless Nitish Kumar, the Bihar CM is. One of the most pertinent questions which the debate failed to address was not about a criminal running the show but rather abuse of power. How a jailed politician has access to a phone? Second the report failed to highlight was that Shahabuddin demanded the SP to be controlled or reprimanded but there was no follow-up by the channel to check if actually the order was carried out? There was no sound bytes from the police (even anonymous). So the debates were loud (sic!) and very harsh on the ears and as a result the real issues were lost in the din.

The second story which I came across was the Sunanda Pushkar murder. Sunanda Pushkar was the wife of then external affairs minister of India Dr. Shashi Tharoor. It was some tapes of a reporter from now with republic (the Arnab Channel) who spoke to Sunanda before she died apparently due to natural causes. While the whole death story was murky from the start with quite a few people believing it to be murder and immense use of political butchery to keep the case least controversial. But anyways Arnab thought it to be a story worth exposing and showing us the levels of power abuse by politicians. And during the loud debate one of the funniest incidents happened. There was a guy named Rahul Eshwar who said the following words in response to a question by Arnab about why the body of Mrs Pushkar moved from room 307 to room 345 as she was in room 307 and her body was found in 345(I hope i get the details correct)? And I quote "No Arnab , She changed rooms on 16th and she died on 17th so nobody moved her ". And the mighty god responded by saying "Stop lying Rahul Eshwar. Your lie has been caught. she cchecked into room no 307 and changed rooms on 16th to room 345 and she was found dead on 17th.". And as it goes I almost died laughing. Anyways arnab thought the news to be so important that he stationed not one but 3 reporters next to Shashi Tharoor's house reporting on which car left the house or what was he wearing when he left the house turning the whole thing into a media circus.

The third story was the killing of an Indian army officer Ummer fayaz who was visiting his home for a marriage in Kashmir.  And as usual the politicians got into action starting the games they play so well. one of the comments which stood out was made by Akhilesh Yadav, the ex-CM of UP where he said how come no soldier from the PM's home state is never killed? This was a highly insensitive comment and goes against the ethoes of the armed forces. When you serve in armed forces you lose all identities except your country. With that aside our Arnab decided to run a full decibel campaign against the leader and his stupid statement which warranted no coverage at all. But he is a nationalist and how dare a politician insult our soldier. Right? Wrong. He would have done a great service to ask the Govt. of the day that how come the situation has been allowed to spiral so badly out of control in Kashmir that a an off-duty soldier is kidnapped by terrorists and killed? Mind you he wasn't killed while on-duty but while home for a marriage. Sad commentary that the Kashmir valley has become so unsafe. The questions by the media should have been why the Govt. of the day  is proving to be ineffectual? And going by the 'nationalist' urges of people like Arnab well the thought of unleashing the army on its own people rather the 'traitors' is the best option. Since they don't care about human rights and neither should we because we have the power and powerful are allowed to kill and in the crossfire if a few innocents are killed that is okay because what better cause to die than for your country.. Man that thought would be giving Orgasms to the nationalists in our country.

The death of logic in Indian democracy

As a nation we take pride in our freedom and the tag world's biggest democracy. Hell we have survived 70 odd years with all the diversity which can put a continent to shame ( Case in point Europe was the melting pot for world wars). But sadly with the advent of social media we have plumbed the depths which we thought can't be reached. Social media gave a voice to one and all. We as a society felt no matter how small we will make our voice heard and if you posted the right things the media people would pick it up and make you the hero and villain at the same time.

The latest storm to hit India was stirred by none other than a 20 year old girl, Gurmehar Kaur, who lost her father to a war caused by the misadventures of Pakistan. Till now all good and now she featured in a video in which she is seen holding placards amongst which is one which caused the maximum controversy and it read ' Pakistan Didn't kill my dada but war did' The other people jumped in against her put up their defenses by saying that since she dared to post he thoughts she should be prepared from the backlash who didn't like her post, fair enough Right. No this is the modern worl and all hell broke loose. People started calling her names and even questioned her credentials and said she should denounce her father's pension and awards , threatened with rape and what not. She literally was being trolled.  Oh I forgot the context It was an event at Ramjas college where Kanhaiya kumar of the now famous for the first national/anti-national skirmish exactly a year back was invited to speak. The nationalist ABVP took it upon themselves to make sure that this time no anti-India slogans are raised and decided to gatecrash the party and have a healthy fight to safeguard our nation against the anti-national forces.

This my friend wasn't the real story some celebs jumped in and tweeted but without tagging her which was also fair and they put in their opinion but lo behold our graceful media, the so-called fourth pillar of democracy, they linked up everything and started the age old debate about freedom , liberalism and the war against right wing activists. Virender Sehwag tweeted out a pic which to me was pretty harmless way of taking a jibe at the 20 year old but no our media had to hype it up. Randeep Hooda jumped in and i was like OK and then the wrestler yogeshwar Dutt frankly tweeted out a whatsapp forward which was sarcastic, funny and quite healthy I would say in isolation. But then the celebs without the exception of Sehwag started adding context to the jibes and our media lapped it up and built it into a fire.

The story is yet to end. The left leaning liberals were frothing at their mouths by the audacity of the right leaning pro-govt forces and they bought out the heavy artillery. The celebs joined in and they as usual started tweeting in a more uncouth manner. It became the story of' Who can be the filthiest of all?'. Javed akhtar derided the sports-persons as uneducated while a reporter from a news organization i like Akash Bannerjee questioned the actor Randeep Hooda because he acted with 'Bimbettes'. The name calling kept on going from both the sides with bwoyblunder, bhaksala , union minister Karen Riiju leading the charge from the right while major media organizations like NDTV etc took the mantle from the left.

It saddens me that debate has fallen to name calling and discrediting individuals. Even U.S.A with President Donald Trump hasn't resorted to calling anyone (Read 80%) of the population opposing him anti-nationals but here in india the line has become very clear that if you speak against the govt you are anti-national. That tells us a story we can claim to be the biggest democracy but we aren't the BEST democracy .By the way the 20 year old girl I was talking about she has withdrawn from the campaign against war in general as she has been quite traumatised by the events as @bwoyblunder on twitter put it 'Acts vulnerable and played the victim ', I believe the girl in question just put a thought where she wanted nobody else to ever lose a near and dear one and grow up without a parent. Wars are human creation and nationalisties again are a human creation. When the girl says war killed her father she just meant let there be peace and resolve all our disputes, The disputes are nothing but a result of human greed and the lack of intiative to solve the problem because that's what keeps our politicians going so that they can exploit it in elections after elections and fooling us 'THEPEOPLE' in the name of nationalism.