The Indian Air Force risks a major capability gap opening up with China and Pakistan without new Western warplanes or if local defense contractors cannot produce what the military needs in a timely manner.
A 2012 agreement to buy 126 Rafale fighters from France's Dassault Aviation has stalled due to a dispute over the assembly of the aircraft in India.
India's first homegrown fighter, the Tejas light combat aircraft, will finally be delivered next month, 30 years after it was conceived. But senior air force officers privately said they were unimpressed, with one former officer, an ex-fighter pilot, saying the plane was "so late it is obsolete."