I do not think GSLV is ready, and won't be ready any time sooner although they are testing it in December. Also, I think GSLV should achieve workhorse capability like PSLV before it can be tasked with major workloads. I think NASA is helping with the payloads on MOM. I would be curious to know which ones are contributions by NASA though [1]. Also, the landing gear is designed with the help of ROSCOSMOS [2]. Some more detailed information in these links [3, 4, 5].
[1] - http://www.isro.org/pslv-c25/pdf/mom-payloads.pdf
[2] - http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/pdf/2760.pdf
[3] - http://isp.justthe80.com/planetary-exploration/mars-obiter
[4] - http://antariksh-space.blogspot.ca/2013/01/isro-mars-mission...
[5] - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3zXg2UZ2J7w/UOej3qTPVvI/AAAAAAAAAO...
[6] - http://www.iafastro.net/iac/archive/browse/IAC-12/A3/3A/1469...
"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
Also do you even read before calling names? You're the only one who took the discussion away from the topic placed in here. Please note that groupthink of seven people who agreed with you doesn't make opinion of others (who disagree with you) any less relevant.
I have replied very aptly to the points that are being raised in posts. I am not deviating in any sense at all, instead you took science away from this topic. Well then your opinion is one that gets raised thousand times, and it is under my purview to give a strong reply once.
EDIT: Reply to comment below.
"> This is civil + I would have called you out in face to face discourse too.
Notice the contradiction? You should calm down, I think."
Honestly, I am lost on the point you are trying to prove here with your comment. I am saying, I would have said those words to you face to face too.
Anyways, thank you for contributing a whole lot of this topic.
As others have pointed out, these are not pre-requisites for a space program. And given that the $100M expenditure (Flipkart raised $160M in funding from the same country a few days back), there is no chance that it is diverting precious resources from the rest of India.
Which brings me to the latter part of your comment - that ISRO does not know how to "compete" with private space startups.
Tell me, why did you suddenly impose the private-profit constraint on India's sovereign space program? Sure ISRO derives some revenue from its commercial launch program, but that is not its primary purpose.
Investments into a country's space program (or any other strategic initiative for that matter) can rarely ever be recouped via "profits". Are NASA engineers working round the clock to compete with Space-X? Is the primary goal of the Chinese space program's to garner the largest commercial launch market share?
All of this does not mean ISRO is above criticism, nor its Mars program. For instance, why the hurry to make this happen in 2013? Why go alone instead of allying with friendly countries? Why not wait for the larger GSLV rocket to place this into orbit instead of the smaller PSLV? Why such opaque decision making around its objectives?
The latter part of this Science article covers some of these points: http://news.sciencemag.org/asia/2012/08/qualms-about-indias-...