One late summer afternoon in 2000, I returned home from college and, as I did every day, picked up the newspaper. I was in class XI, and defence and foreign policy had been an abiding interest. I distinctly remember reading a six- or seven-column story, “Government to buy 123 fighter jets”, published prominently in a business newspaper. Those were the early days when the Indian Air Force (IAF) was looking to procure a new single-engine fighter to replace the Russian MiG-21 jets in service. Initially, it was keen to procure the upgraded Mirage 2000-5, after the older Mirage 2000s in service performed exceptionally well during the 1999 Kargil conflict. However, in 2001, then Defence Minister Jaswant Singh directed the IAF to go for an open, competitive selection process. So, a Request for Information (RFI) was issued to assess what was available and, based on that, to finalise the technical parameters of what was needed—or the Service Quality Requirements, as they are called.