MMRCA: the vigil continues

India's Economic Times has reported that the MMRCA contract could be announced within ten days, qouting sources.  Of course, on 21 December India's Business Standard said a decision was coming 'within a fortnight.' In February last year, the Hindu qouted none less than the Air Chief himself as saying the deal would be signed by September 2011.

The only definitive story announcing a winner came Friday from Grande Strategy, a blog apparently based in Pakistan that purports to provide and 'Islamic perspective' on geopolitical security issues.  Grande Strategy quotes unammed sources as saying that the Eurofighter won. As The Aviationist points out, however, the authors of Grande Strategy are not likely to be that well plugged into Delhi's decision making apparatus. And in any case the Indian MoD has played the MMRCA cards close to its chest for years now.

The best summing up of what is happening is probably Livefist's posting on Friday, which suggests that Delhi could make the announcement before Republic Day on the 26^th.