Look, you can never have research that will guarantee outputs at the end of it. By their very nature, the studies done are exploratory and failure is daily business. You sometimes learn more about a system from a failed experiment than from reverse engineering. So I'm all for research.

I just think DRDO has lost its ability to attract the quality of brains it so desperately needs and they're costing private industries a lot by way of their mode of operation. Half the strategic raw material vendors are wary of India because of their prior dealings with DRDO/HAL etc. And a lot of our gov companies are no their no-trade list. :)

Its almost going to reach a point in the next few years where private industries will be the only way ahead because gov agencies spread inefficiencies around like the plague. Also strategic material vendors are happy to atleast engage with privates as they can hold them to account, with gov agencies you're essentially suing a friendly nation if you catch the drift. Its a geopolitical mess for them. Esp. the Japanese feel this way.