> India certainly has the tech and knowledge resources to build a competitive model

In what universe? India has near-absolutely none of the expensive infra and chip stockpile needed to build frontier models that its American and Chinese counterparts have, even if it did have the necessary expertise (which I also doubt it does).

Deepseek has shown that you can still do a whole lot if you have to work with limited resources as long as you have some really talented people and don't give a crap about IP. With 1.5 billion people, statistics tell us you'll find quite a few in the high tail-end of the intelligence distribution and I also don't think they have a strong sense to comply with western intellectual ownership. The biggest difficulty for India seems to be that all remotely talented people will immediately use their skills to find work somewhere else. And I can't blame them, because I would do so too.

Sadly in India talking about the problems facing the country has become a taboo, and can easily get one labeled as anti national. See "Kompact AI" and its online discourse. While China practiced "Hide your strength, bide your time". India seems to practice the opposite.