What most people know about India’s defence business is that, while the government has been trying for decades to achieve self-reliance in weapons development and manufacture (mostly through government-owned companies), the reality is that India is the second-largest importer of defence hardware. That paradoxical outcome is not for want of trying — though perhaps not trying the right way. What few know is that India has the third- or fourth-largest budget for defence research and development (counting space and atomic energy as part of defence). The money spent is a lot less than by either the US or China, but…