In 2014, itself when Modi was sworn as PM if he had any decent defense minister first he should have a Strategy like this a Short-term goal and long-term goal LOGICALLY. The Short term goal is to replace ageing fighter jets and long term goal is to field indigenous fifth gen fighter aircraft. Iam as patriotic as i can get but at that time we should had scrapped Tejas Program and also the Tejas Mk2 program as they NEITHER FILL NUMBERs IN SHORT TERM(IT's 2023, a full 9 YEARs & ONLY 50 are built against the backlog) NOR EVEN PUT A LITTLE FIGHT AGAINST FIFTH GEN AIRCRAFT IN LONG TERM because they are 4.5gen. The Tejas& Tejas Mk2 was,is & will be in an awkward position of Neither achieving short term goals nor achieving long term goal. We should have scrapped Tejas and start 2 new fighter jet programs indigenously, one with single engine and another with twin engine. We should have been even ready to pay upto 150M per jet even having leniency in no domestic manufacturing but 100% ToT of Know-Why or atleast Know-How of Jet engines is Must. We can let go on local assembly and all that but the Engines have to be made from scratch not even importing single screw. It is better if we give that job to Godrej Aerospace who are now to manufacture Kaveri w/o afterburner. They may absorb technology fast than useless trash HAL. If in a scenario we brought F-21 by LM, be it a stop gap measure. Atleast F-21 is better than Mig-21 and had we ordered that we would have replaced all that Flying coffins by 2019 and won't be embarrassed internationally by that incident in balakot. Had we opted for F-21 in numbers like 150 which can replace all our Mig-21, Mig-29 and some older jets, we may had chance of manufacturing F110 which is more powerful than F414(which we recently negotiated a deal). We may even had to sweeten the deal to USA by ordering our airlines to order more Commerial Boeing jets or more Maritime Patrol or Tanker or Transport or even LM2500 engines for Warships. All that fear of US Sanctions are farce because we STILL ARE GOING TO USE USA ENGINEs IN NOW UPCOMING AMCA Jet. The deal with USA is for F-21 but in reality it is to get hands on F110 Engine. I don't know USA will agree for ToT like F414 for F110 if we are ordering in huge numbers. With F110 we can design two fifth gen planes that will replace our fleet of some 750 planes in future. With F110 we can design a Light-Medium 17.50-18.00 Ton Stealth Jet and 25.00-27.50 Ton Stealth Jet where both of them can supercruise since everything is stored internally. Now we had to settle for subpar F414 engine in AMCA. Since government is new, he should have boldly go forward with a consortium formed by Reliance-Tata-Adani like those in Korean Aerospace Industries partially owned by Chaebol. No HAL in the equation of fighter jets, instead they should have been alloted a common airframe like A321 to work on with all Sensor Platforms like Tanker,AWACs,Ground Surveillance, MaritimePatrol Etc. The Private consortium would have been able to churn out jets very quickly. As much i love my country, as much i want to indigenize as much as possible to create our Own MIC, prevent ourflow of FOREX , TEJAS FULLFILLs NEITHER SHORT TERM GOAL OF AGEING JETs NOR LONG TERM GOAL OF BEING ABLE TO PUT A MINIMUM FIGHT AGAINST FIFTH GEN IN 2040-2050-2060. Now its 2023, both the short term and long term goals are now awkward. We are in no position to neither abandon Tejas nor redesign higher thrust AMCA nor single engine Stealth Jet.