Couldn´t India choose a western made engine for MTA?

Sure, but the question is what are these 4 requirements that they believe PD-14M does not fulfill, and do any plausible replacement engines actually fulfill those?
It may very well be that there is no off the shelf engine that fulfills those requirements, and IAF may need to assess whether those requirements are actually so important to the program, while every other airforce has not required them.
Alternatively, it may need to pay to develop those capabilities into an engine, which may as well be PD-14M if no other engine is offering them off the shelf…
And potentially they might need to induct early production models without that capability, with those characteristics being back-ported to early models via over-hauls, etc.
If they can get these capabilities off the shelf, I don’t see why they couldn’t integrate an alternate engine, given the JV structure of the deal, but they will need to pay for that themself.
Russia may not agree to India leaving PD-14M integration costs only to Russia, meaning India would need to (partially) pay for PD-14M in addition to any of it’s own choosing,
(obviously they knew getting into the program that Russia would be on board only on condition of using it’s own engines)
so the more viable approach may be upgrading/qualifying those features onto PD-14M if they truly are necessary.

If Gripen NG is rejected, what is the realistic options?
Would something like KAI’s T-50 (or F/A-50 for this purpose) be sufficient for air police duty?

Sustained turn rate and TWR/speed seem dominant at BVR.
In WVR, HOBS/HMS are dominant, with DIRCM as counterfactor (and acceleration accentuating that).
If both sides have strong DIRCM, then it’s back to a gun fight?

What does a feasibility study do that is different to a risk reduction effort?

Uneducated guess: the latter was about bringing technologies to higher maturity levels.
The former is about making plans about which high or near-high maturity technologies to actually utilize and what possible combinations of them could be made a final product.
In all likelyhood, with rough budget estimates along with development risk profiles for the different options.
One was just about pushing the technological frontier, not directly worried about how to fit into a specific program with specific capability requirements and “fixed” (:very_drunk:) budget, the other exactly focused to that aim.
The most latest program will be crucial in establishing what exact requirements to attach to the final program. :very_drunk:

So if no Alarm, what SEAD capability does Typhoon carry? HARM?
Come to think of it, what do the other Eurocanards carry for SEAD?

Rafale somehow fulfilled India’s requirement for dedicated ARM, mostly likely candidate is Kh-31, possibly HARM although I doubt it.

I had been under the impression A2G was not a major aim besides ARM or such, but that along with low level terrain autopilot seems to be the plan:

Thermal imaging system (TPVS) 26, which provides for detection of ground targets with optical or thermal contrast, their direction finding and ranging up to them, as well as the guidance system of SD “air-surface”;

Does anybody have info on the DIRCM planned for PAKFA?
This seems like a major impact on the platform, yet seems to be ignored despite being world first. No S-Ducts to debate, I guess.
Does this have any shared heritage with the collaboration with INDRA on transport plane DIRCM, or is it wholly unique?
Any idea of performance parameters at all?
I wonder if a microwave laser could be used for spot jamming of incoming radar missiles…

I was looking into the EADS Cassidian UAV demonstrator “Sagitta”,
and I came across this introductory research as part of that, basically a flexible/”morphing” (how 90’s) covering between flap surfaces.
…Apparently for stealth/RCS benefit as well as some aerodynamic benefit…

http://www.llb.mw.tum.de/download/papers/papers/Paper_daRocha_36.pdf