India signed a deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France on Friday for close to 7.8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) on Friday. The 7.8 billion euro deal is crucial for the Indian Air Force that is grappling with a drawdown of its fighter fleet. The fighter jets will have state-of-the-art missiles like Meteor and Scalp that will give the IAF a capability that had been sorely missing in its arsenal. Rafale jets will enable the air force to hit targets inside Pakistan from within India. The “vanilla price” or the price of only the 36 aircraft is 3.42 billion euros.

Source: Hindustan Times September 23, 2016 07:31 UTC