New Delhi, Feb. 1: India’s defence ministry has decided to overlook Iran, Pakistan and China even as it has invited official delegations from nearly 80 countries to its biggest civil-military airshow.

Defence production secretary Raj Kumar Singh, the main organiser for the event, said the defence ministry had acted “on the advice of the ministry of external affairs” in deciding whom to invite.

While Pakistan has never been invited to the airshow, its defence attaché in New Delhi has in the past visited Defexpo, the land weapons show that is held every alternate year in the capital. Aero India and Defexpo are held in New Delhi and Bangalore every other year. This year’s will be the eighth edition of Aero India.

Russia, the main supplier of military hardware to India, also has a scaled-down presence in Aero India 2011. It is not bringing in the MiG-35 combat aircraft though it is in the competition for a possible $12-billion (Rs 54,900-crore) deal to supply 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The MMRCA deal is possibly the largest single military contract up for grabs in the world now. The five other competitors for the contract — which defence minister A.K. Antony and air chief marshal P.V. Naik have said will be signed in the next three months — are the F-16 Super Viper (Lockheed Martin, US), F/A-18 Super Hornet (Boeing, US), Rafale (Dassault Aviation, France), Gripen JAS 39 C/D (Saab, Sweden) and the Eurofighter Typhoon (the European Consortium, EADS).

Asked if the invites to official delegations sent out for Aero India 2011 reflected India’s diplomatic priorities, Singh said: “I think that is wide of the mark. Russia is our very strong partner and our relations with China are improving. The list (of invitees for official delegations) has been drawn up in consultation with the MEA (ministry of external affairs).”

But the government has clearly gone by selection criteria. Even a Chinese journalist based in New Delhi, Leo Zhengjun Liao, chief correspondent of the Peoples Daily, could not get accreditation. All media accreditation is online, but the website for Aero India 2011 does not even list China in the column for countries to identify the nationalities of the journalists.

In September, foreign ministry officials said India was freezing friendly military-to-military engagements with China after Beijing refused to grant a visa to India’s northern army commander. A friendly bilateral army exercise that began in 2007 is also suspended.

But the exclusion of Iran is still a surprise. Through the 1980s and the 1990s and even in the first years of the last decade, India and Iran had friendly military relations, not only because of close diplomatic connections but also because India and Iran have common Russian weapons platforms. But in the last three years, India has either voted against Iran or has abstained in the vote on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and human rights record.

Asked if the Chinese ambassador and the Chinese defence attaché had been invited to Aero India 2011 — that is less than an official delegation — officials refused to answer.

The largest number of companies in Aero India will be from the US (63), followed by France (43), Germany (42), UK (41), Russia (25), Italy (22), Belgium (17) and Israel (13). Official delegations are expected from 45 countries.