well, i think, based on all that has been already said on this issue, It is commendable that India has taken up measures to become self-reliant in defence technologies but we still have a long way to go which is justified because we should not forget that when the US was planning to go into space we had just achieved independence and were still in the struggling phase of establishing India's identity as an independent nation. On the other hand, i also believe that its not the talent that we perhaps lack, but its the political will to see change happening, better management practices, full accountability and adherence to standards.

I hope everybody is aware of the MMRCA project, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.... This is one big move in an effort to modernize the aging IAF fleet, but, at the same time we need to keep in mind, that until we make a start at innovation, it wont happen and we would still be saying, "Oh..we are a newly independent country, we will take time". Thankfully, LCA has started to fuse in some dynamism there. Its been more than 60 years since our freedom, we have come a long way in technological advancement in other industries, why lack in defence?one major factor is that still a vast majority of defence tech companies are government run companies, either privatise them or strengthen their existing infrastructure so that they can recruit good talent that leaves India, to work may be in a similar company elsewhere which pays well and this is the number one reason why people dont really want to work in govt organisations. And its not just about the pay, but the overall quality of job and professinonal standards that many govt firms lack, are also the contributing factors towards people turning away from such jobs.

On a final note, India as an emerging nation of the 21st century has a double onus on its shoulders, it not only has to address basic problems, like education, health, poverty, population and law enforcement due to which India has been consistently ranked in bottom rungs of the world tally, but also take up technological advancements as the front runners of the Indian economy. Dont forget, India has a great manpower, we can easily tap this resource and enable them to make India grow.

I do have my doubts about the LCA project.....from what I know about the Indian manufacturing scene be it automotive,defense of CE ....we are capable at making the outer mold for anything....but you dig deep its all imported tech...welll we all have to start somewhere ...but over the last 60 years we still trying to start...and now the entire thing is in coma ...which people dont even want to try and jumpstart.The DRDO which is supposed to
Arjun tank,Admiral Ghorskov.....and the list is endless...Please add the LCA to this hall of fame list.
I hope I am proven wrong...

If you are really concerned about misuse of taxpayer money, raise awareness/rant about corruption and misappropriation of funds by politicians and administrators who act selfishly, including installing statues and other personal agendas which is a slap on the taxpayer’s face.

Prashanth,
You make some great points and this discussion is pretty riveting. I just thought I should point out that we do all of the above frequently on this blog.

R & D is usually a high investment-low short-term return situation. A large country like India cannot afford to depend on other nations for high-profile technologies. One must realise the long term good such research endeavors can produce. Look as ISRO which took time to learn and build those numerous satellites that are playing a key role in helping gather data vital to the nation. But along the way, failures and budget overruns are a part of the learning process of technology development.
This is not to say that R&D in India is great. Far from it. There are many R&D failures which can be attributed to poor planning and management. But I do believe that LCA project is not one of those failures. The Kaveri jet engine may be a different matter.

If you are really concerned about misuse of taxpayer money, raise awareness/rant about corruption and misappropriation of funds by politicians and administrators who act selfishly, including installing statues and other personal agendas which is a slap on the taxpayer's face.

Hi
Interesting post.. good to see that the Indian public is waking up to the reality of the wastage of the taxpayer's money into white elephant projects. Had written something similar recently. You might want to have a look

http://dharakhoh.blogspot.com/...
http://dharakhoh.blogspot.com/...

I would have to disagree with the importance of having an indigenous jet fighter at the cost and effort it took, which brings me back to my original point - I never meant to imply we don't need an indigenous jet fighter or a jet fighter at all. we had issues in achieving a goal that wasted a whole lot of money and effort with little success. 6 billion $ (not adjusting to inflation) since 1980's - imagine the long term good it would have done to millions of people's lives in the country.

Building an aircraft in 1978 is not starting from the basics since western nations have been working on jet fighters before India got independence. So we do have a lot to catch up on.
And yes, you are correct to state that building from a scratch does not mean we start with the wright brothers. But for a machine as intricate and advanced as a modern fighter, mere bookish knowledge, off the shelf components available on the international market and reverse engineering cannot satisfy the entirety of the project. There will still be critical gaps in knowledge that need to be ironed out and tricks to be learned from personal experience.
And no, just becos the $6 billion could have been used to provide for important necessities does not justify NOT investing in indigenous technology development. A nation has to spend money on various issues, and cannot afford to neglect one important issue at the expense of other important ones. Indigenous defense technology is as vital to the nation as is clean drinking water, schools and sanitation facilities.

Prashanth,
Kudos to the effort, sure. And I somewhat agree with you when you say we don't have the luxury of building over already existing technology when we are starting from scratch. But I think your view of success of the project may be a little misplaced. F-16 was conceptualized in the late 1960's and the first flight was in 74, and the introduction into air force. (US) was in 78 (wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... (Less than 20 years for an advanced technology in 1970's, and from what you can see it is something like starting from the basics)

Building from scratch does not necessarily mean going back to aviation 101 or reinventing the wheel, just indigenously produce technology that's already existing at that point in time or at best reverse engineer existing technology.

And I was also considering the fact that, we could have put in 6 billion$ for other very important necessities for the common man in the country.

The LCA will be an accomplishment when done, but considering the time and money that was put in it, not really sure if it's that impressive.

First, it does not make sense to compare the R&D pace in developed nations with that of developing nations like India. Developed nations are able to work on the fifth and higher generations of aircrafts by doing a lot of improvements on top of their existing know-how which has been accumulated over decades. India lags behind in this respect. As just an example, consider a jet engine turbine blade. It is one of the various thousands of critical parts that constitute an aircraft, but the technology to make the best of these is only with a few nations. And these nations are able to use the technology off the shelf. But India has had to develop these in parallel with the LCA development.
Second, it is not unusual for developed nations to take 25 years to develop a modern fighter. And these fighters then serve for about another 25 years. And during these development cycles, we do not hear much about the competing projects that got rejected. When Boeing and Lockheed martin develop and aircraft, they are competing against each other and invest billions and after 20 years of development, one of them could get kicked out.
Bottomline, the development of the LCA (not the Kaveri engine) has been an impressive feat, given how late India has entered this field. Same goes for the space and missile technologies. Kudos.

DG,
Put in the change in governments (and their policies) and it adds to more chaos. Most government firms have poor accountability practices for their employees where you cannot be served a warning for poor performance (compared to private firms, where you can fire at will - if the performance is not satisfactory).

AM,
The 6 billion$ was only for ONE component within the plane, the same component we are now planning to import. That's a huge waste of time and effort and though I've absolute confidence that we had the brains to do it, we may not have the proper management policies. Also, whatever amount companies like lockheed Martin spend on research, they get gains in twice or thrice the amounts when they sell a downgraded version of the jet fighters to other countries. In one of the links, I pointed to above, Malaysia and Thailand are interested in acquiring Tejas, but we are nowhere close to selling them a finished product (expected date 2012 to see it in action).

Also note that, we are still trying to build this fourth gen. aricraft while we do have joint venture with Russia for 5th gen. aircraft that is expected to roll out this month (http://www.india-defence.com/r....

Strategically, we should now be thinking about fifth gen. aircraft ourselves (if not 6th), but after 25 years and billions of $$, we are nowhere close to completion. All this while our MIGs have crashed 22 times in the past 3 years (http://www.flightglobal.com/ar.... I think in many ways, this has been a failure.

I don't kow how you can compare this as a failure as compared to other countries. The F-22 was built based on a report in 1981 and Lockheed Martin started work on it in 1986. The plane has cost way more than the 6 billion USD in development, and despite having been included in service since 2006 - has never been used in combat missions.

I just hope the Tejas planes that are built get some use and don't kill our own pilots in training missions

as the tag says, It happens only in India ... I think what it boils down to is the question : Be self-sufficient and innovate vs. feasibility and economics ... It's like a project with a scope but no timeline and no budgetary deadline ... The government + the scientists could have atleast looked up to JFK's man-on-the-mission moon for some pointers ...