India has toned down its presence at the Paris air show, which opened for business on Monday. France was hoping for a major announcement on the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal during the show. Highly placed sources in the defence ministry told FE that IAF chief NAK Browne will be giving this year?s event a miss.
It is already known that defence minister AK Antony is not heading this year?s Indian delegation to Paris. The buzz in the MoD is that the recently appointed defence secretary, RK Mathur, will also be missing in action.
Minister of state for defence Jitendra Singh will lead the Indian team with Air Marshal PR Sharma, a joint secretary from the MoD and representatives of the army and navy.
The toned down Indian presence at the show is being attributed to the sensitive phase of the MMRCA negotiations. It is learnt that while Dassault is eager to roll out a red carpet for the Indian side, defence ministry officials want to stay away from it. The MoD and the French company Dassault, maker of Rafale, have been in negotiations for concluding the $20-billion MMRCA deal since February last year.