“To me it looks like not much has changed from the information in the Indian press cited in my post #20.”
The only thing that HAS chaged is India’s options. The Europeans and Russians are quite willing to give India access to their technology in return for the robust Indian defense market. And thus you have the MMRCA fighter contract (the largest defense contract ever) going to France and not the US.
Thank you for the additional information.
My "criticism" was aimed at US not India. Why are there Americans who would accept the terms demanded by India?
If our aim is to get access to India's bases I have to ask why do we want access?
We taxpayers have paid for and co-signed trillions in loans to pay for decades of R&D. IMO we ought not give it away for something that we do not need.