Answer: France
Notes: The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), led by the Prime Minister, approved a ₹63,000-crore deal to buy 26 Rafale-M fighter jets from France for the Indian Navy. Earlier, India planned to buy 126 jets under the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender in 2007, but it was cancelled in 2015. A 2016 deal brought 36 Rafale jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF), delivered from 2019 to 2022. The new deal includes 22 Rafale-M single-seater jets for aircraft carriers and 4 twin-seater trainers for practice. These jets will fly from INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant. Rafale is a 4.5 generation, twin-engine, delta-wing, multirole fighter made by Dassault Aviation. It can fly at Mach 1.8 and has a combat range of over 1000 kilometers, useful for various missions like air combat, ground attacks, and naval strikes.
