Common sense & the Rafale deal

One is that India has agreed to pay substantially more than warranted. The other is that there has been crony capitalism at work in the Indian manufacture part of it.

T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan 

T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan

In a half-baked semi-market democracy like ours, everything becomes political. So it is not surprising that the purchase of the Rafale multirole fighter jet from France should also become political. There are two main criticisms being offered.

One is that India has agreed to pay substantially more than warranted. The other is that there has been crony capitalism at work in the Indian manufacture part of it. I am not competent to comment on the price/quality aspect but on crony capitalism I do want to ask this: How do you establish whether a practice is good or bad? What test/s ...

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First Published: Fri, September 07 2018. 23:10 IST