August 29, 2014: For the second time, the Indian government has decided to scrap the 197 reconnaissance and surveillance helicopter (RSH) programme, announcing that a new tender will be issued under fresh guidelines, keeping the competition largely Indian under the 'Buy & Make' route. In effect, this will involve an Indian company or consortium entering into a joint venture with a foreign aircraft major to first buy and then manufacture the helicopters in India with a certain degree of Indian systems on board. The decision is a setback to Airbus Helicopter (formerly Eurocopter) which has now suffered a near win and eleventh-hour scrapping twice in the same competition. The first attempt fell through in 2007 following allegations of deviations in the field evaluation trials. This time the deal was apparently sunk as a result of parallel investigations into the AgustaWestland deal revealing the possible use of corrupt practices by a serving Army officer to influence the first attempt of the deal.