No, N. Ram, you are wrong on Rafale: Abhijit Iyer-Mitra's rebuttal to The Hindu

The Hindu's N Ram in an 'exclusive' on Rafale deal on Friday claimed that the Narendra Modi government had lied on the pricing of the aircraft. In this video, foremost defence analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, who is a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies, calls Ram's bluff, demolishing his argument brick by brick.

The Hindu article shifts the baseline of argument from 2007 to 2009 to 2011. Iyer-Mitra argues that $ 1.9 billion is the money spent on research and development, which was reported by him in 2016. Regardless of the number of aircraft bought, the non-recurring amount would remain the same, says Abhijit. He also goes on to demolish the theory that Qatar bought Rafale cheaper. The story of the so-called secrecy pact that The Hindu waxes eloquent about is questionable, too. Watch this video where Abhijit Iyer-Mitra says Ram has 'rehashed an old story'.