To be fair sir, the SP report says a bit more than just that
An "indication" that the Litening is selected, from the manufacturer, is not an official confirmation and doesn't tell us more about the aimed platforms either. It's a good sign of course and I expected that from the start as you know, but I leaned that we need a lot of patience and official confirmations in this competition.
One of the original requirements for the IAF for the MMRCA was to have a plane delivered with a HMDS, this was known to Dassualt from day 1. There simply is no question of IF the IAF will be electing to go for HMDS on their Rafales. If Dassualt hadn't already agreed to this they wouldn't have made it past the technical evaluation stages.
Of course and there is no doubt that Indian Rafales would have HMS if we select it, but we have to fund the final integration first, since neither French government, nor Dassault has done that so far. Just like we can have FSO - IRST, but that we have to pay for, or take over the production of it, since that part is not in production anymore.
It's the same with EF's AESA, TVC, or the EPE engine, IRST and additional passive sensors of the F18SH. The manufacturer can "offer" featurers that could be added to the fighter, but aren't funded yet, they just have to do it from the start and that certain data of them will be diverted for at least theoretical evaluation.
Latest news was that Qatar was waiting to see what India did on the Rafale front so it's unlikely we'll see Qatar place orders before India
Nope, they have no advantage from waiting on India, since they have their own requirements and needs. In fact that need to find a taker for the M2Ks, which will be a crucial point for their new procurement. The recent reports also suggest that they are up to more advantages, maybe even from different sides, by going not only for 36 x fighters, but possibly even 72, maybe in form of 2 different fighters (EU/US split like UAE and Saudi). Then you have the fast A330MRTT procurement of the last weeks, which clearly hints on a fast fighter selection too, since their M2Ks afaik doesn't have IFR capability.
They might be more influenced by a possible decision of the UAE and the support of Saudi Arabia for the EF, than that we select a Rafale with Israeli features, that they can't get anyway.
self funded by DA. The type of HMD i couldn't know exactly, probably topsight new version.
Self funded SATCOM would make sense, since it's clear that the French forces will need this feature soon too, but self funded HMS would be more than surprising, since they offered that feature to UAE, in Brazil or Switzerland only as an option.