For Su-30 BTW
According to a HAL official, 157 Indian vendors are involved in providing 13,350 components of the Su-30MKI, while another 19,450 components are manufactured at HAL’s Nasik and Koraput divisions.

Even this is not sufficient as any delays in remaining spares from Russia can hold up MRO/AOG maintenance (and IAF does not want to tie up its budget in heavy stockpiling and prefers local TOT to put orders expecting short lead times).

HAL has put up its own spares part warehouse and Sukhoi is in talks with the Tata group to indigenize even more assemblies (of the some 10-20% still imported from Russia) while the amount that will still be imported (non economic to produce locally) will be manufactured faster or stockpiled by a Sukhoi/HAL initiative..

This should tell anyone about the amount of effort required to sustain a modern 4.5 G fighter. With Rafale, given those aircraft have no TOT, India is completely reliant on France. Its a suboptimal decision IMO and hence the IAF insistence to procure the spares upfront..

You should look deeper in the setup of Dassault , they are far from producing all the parts, hence if Renault was willing to move in aerospace and Dassault lacked competence in a domain , there will be nothing wrong in involving Renault in that domain to produce the required parts ,even key ones. HAL primary contractor did not meant unique and absolute contractor in all domains. As mentioned the Indian government took sufficiently notice of those event to revise the exclusive monopole of HAL.

BTW, even for the Su-30 HAL relies on a network of aerospace suppliers within India.

http://www.dynamatics.com/about.shtml
http://www.spsmai.com/military/?id=3484&q=Alpha-Design-front-runners-of-%27Make-in-India%27-campaign
http://www.business-standard.com/article/press-releases/samtel-hal-mfd-approved-for-induction-on-sukhoi-30-mki-aircraft-110102200094_1.html

There are dime a dozen suppliers… how is it that all these suppliers which have been part of offsets were somehow not relegated to first place, even if HAL was considered an issue.

Dassault has simply put Rafale at an unaffordable price and IMO, MOD will go looking for alternatives with more Su-30 and Tejas bridging the gap in the interim.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-Russia-discuss-missile-helicopter-sub-deals-ahead-of-Modi-Putin-summit/articleshow/49633635.cms

India is now finalizing the procurement of ten S-400 systems, which can destroy hostile aircraft, stealth fighters, missiles and drones at ranges up to 400-km, in what will be a game-changing acquisition. Though the cost of the government-to-government deal will be decided through negotiations, it will be upwards of $5 billion, making it one of the largest-ever arms contract to be inked with Russia.

Similarly, the Modi government is keen to kick off the almost $1 billion project for the manufacture of around 200 Russian Kamov Ka-226T light utility helicopters under the “Make in India” policy by the next financial year.

But Russia is still to address India’s technical and price concerns over the fifth-generation fighter project, which envisages IAF inducting the Sukhoi T-50 (PAK-FA) jets. Under the original plan, 127 of these fighters were to be built in India for over $25 billion. But India is now also examining the possibility of directly buying 60-65 Sukhoi T-50s since the co-production plan has been hit by long delays.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20151030/1029345938/russia-india-arms-contracts.html#ixzz3qM90HBYM

India will acquire 48 Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters and, on Thursday, the Indian Defense Ministry cleared a proposal to upgrade the country’s fleet of Russian-made Ilyushin Il-76 transport planes and Il-78 aerial tankers.

>> It seems you don’t know any thing about flight testing. it only take one or maximum two years for cargo transport to enter service after first flight unless the computers estimation is off the mark.

A-400 cough. C-17 cough, cough. Oh yes, estimations are off.
Somewhere, a village is wondering about the loss of its idiot.

What rubbish. The reason you hear about incidents like this is because they are not the norm. Sea Harriers beat F-15s 90% of the time? Sure… sounds like unsubstantiated chest-thumping to me, just like how Cope India (according to the Indian Air Force) consisted of MiG-21s shooting down the entire USAF with minimal losses.

Can you lay off the hyperbole? Cope India was revealed by AvLeak and it was only the USAF which spoke about it. The IAF said nothing.
Read and figure.
http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/exercise-iaf-usaf-su30-f15-article01.html
http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/exercise-cope-india-article02.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-planning-acquisition-of-advanced-Russian-air-defence-missile-system/articleshow/49306976.cms

– Government may initiate procurement of S-400.
– Deliveries of SpyDer SAM stuck because the mounting truck needed to be changed after blacklisting of the supplier.
– Barak-8/MRSAM (IAF ground based version) deliveries to start 2016-17.

The last one sounds optimistic because afaik, the testing of ground based Barak-8 has not started yet.

A dozen S-400 systems? Around 6 squadrons (12 batteries) or 12 squadrons? Huge step up for the IAF if it proceeds.

Considering he says 4 SpyDer systems to be inducted – and IAF ordered 18 batteries (at least), his numbers seem off or he is referring to the numbers available asap.

The ground based Barak-8, I agree

Medium-range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) is one of the major mission-mode programmes
taken up by DRDO as joint development programme with IAI, Israel. Design of the various sub-systems
and major elements like combat management systems, missile launcher LBMFSTAR (Long-range
Detection and Tracking Radar), have been completed. Realisation of hardware of various elements of
the system is under progress and in an advanced stage. Radar cooling system has been developed
and qualified. The system is under development

– the main issue was with the missile IIRC. Induction could mean trials start off in India itself for the integrated system but it’ll take till 2017.

By the way, the IAF is well on its way to recapitalize or add to its entire SAM and radar/sensor inventory. A few months back, the GOI cleared 10 new nodes as I recall for the IAFs C3I system IACCS
Five are already operational with the bulk on the western border against Pakistan. The remaining ones will basically network all the sensors, SAGW and coordinate AFB etc against PRC and will also network the island territories.

They have around 37 DRDO Rohini radars on order. These are replacing the older Russian kit. Then they had some dozen Israeli gapfillers for the mountains. Thats being doubled since DRDO made its own design which IAF ordered. Then some 18 Medium Power radars were ordered from Israel. These will probably replace the old French TRD radars and supplement the upgraded PSM-33s in service. The DRDO has its own MPR in IAF trials now and IAF has ordered 8 already – more expected. The Rohinis are now going to be supplanted with a new AESA variant called the LLTR of which IAF has ordered 18. In the meantime, they are also taking another 19 from France of the same category which is intended for mountains. So basically significant progress there. Add the Akash squadrons, SpyDer and MRSAM they all come with integral radars and systems which will add to the mix.
4 Aerostats were ordered to add to the 2 earlier (1 of which was damaged but being repaired).
A recent tender went out for HPRs – high power radars too, to replace the huge THD series systems in service. DRDO could have a product there too (they can leverage the LRTR based off of the Greenpine for the BMD program, but they are clearly upto their neck in programs and didn’t offer).

In each case the Indian product was much cheaper than its foreign counterpart and offered equivalent performance, which allows the IAF to do more with less (its budget). But of course, this didn’t happen overnight. Many trials, much delays for some of the earlier products, but its paying off now for the IAF and DRDO.

In short, apart from AWACS & fighter radars, India/DRDO has pretty much hit all the segments there are in conventional radars. Which is why both are critical. The AWACS segment will also be more or less taken care of, based off of the AEW&C experience and taking it further. The fighter segment is still a step ahead with Uttam having a long way to go for the LCA. I think that’s one area where JVs or codevelopment will be required still. Next step for DRDO will be multi-static and exotic systems, which is in line with the roadmap for the larger AWACS.

Interestingly for SAMs too, the Akash and Akash Mk2 will provide the much needed bulk. Instead of relying on a handful of over expensive gold plated imports which had to be rationed.

IAF is now leaning on DRDO to get it a range of PGMs and missiles. When that happens, things will really turn around for the IAF.
Having a huge stock of locally produced PGMs will drastically change the way it approaches any conflict.

In other news IAF is finally stating its datalink program will be operationalized in 2-3 years. Its pilot program passed off successfully last year or so. That’s been another hugely delayed, ambitious program. Right now AFAIK, only the Su30s are datalinked with their native datalink which was part of the original package.