Alright, for the sake of argument, I will concede my position.
But permit me to ask another question, why did India choose the Rafales over say the Eurofighter, Gripen, or why not just purchase more Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs ? I thought that the Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs were popular in the Indian Air Force.
Indian AirForce follows a heavy,medium,light line.
Su-30MKI is a heavy class fighter of more than 30 tons and enormous RCS.When we bought Su from Russia ,it was a fair deal with reasonable costs and full ToT.But recent years its maintenance work is become more expensive more than 100% of real fighter costs. We cant ignore it is late 90s tech we included most advanced avionics that is why we avoid Su35 because due to addition of good avionics is MKI became almost equal to Su 35.
This heavy class fighter cant use for SEAD operation because of its size.
Our govt also interested in long range fighter .Su 30 MKI can pass all this criteria except itts RCS and heavy class.
That is why they are going to induct Dassault Rafale.IAF have good impression about French system.Mirage 2000 of French was the real hero of Operation Safed Sagar during Kargil war period.Technically both Rafale and Mirage have a lot of similarities since it is from same company.
Geopolitics also played in here very well.EFT is a 4 nation consortitum and of course we cant guarantee their combinrd cooperation in future and we already have a bitter experience one member nation Italy.
But Rafale's only owner is French.
Among the contenders EFT and Rafale are much better than others be it in range ,technology or ToT.
Gripen is not a match for Rafale.US products have too much strings .Russians Mig 35 is out dated.
IAF is also much impressed with Spectre avionics of Rafale.
EFT is more expensive than Rafale but dont have AESA radar.
Saudi AF have EFT and you know the relation with Saudi and our westrrn neighbour and in turn northern neighbour.
So Rafale is the right choice.