Critical minerals and rare earths

Prelims and Mains

A mineral is called critical when an economy and its armed forces cannot do without it and the supply can be cut, which is a judgement about politics as much as about geology. For almost all of them the cut would come at the refinery rather than at the mine.

• Across copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and the rare earths, the top three refining countries held 86 per cent of the market in 2024.
• China leads the refining of 19 of 20 strategic minerals, and its 2025 export controls on rare earths reached industries from electric vehicles to defence.
• Processed material, not raw ore, is what serves a country in a supply shock, so it is midstream processing rather than reserves that decides resource security.
• The European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act answers with 2030 benchmarks of 10 per cent domestic extraction, 40 per cent processing and 25 per cent recycling.
• The United States is racing to build magnets without Chinese inputs.

Prelims and Mains

The mission is India's umbrella programme for critical mineral security, covering exploration, processing, recovery and acquisition abroad. Its first instrument is the least glamorous one, holding stock against an interruption rather than producing more.

• ₹500 crore has been seeded under it for stockpiling.

Prelims and Mains

A rare earth magnet is what shrinks an electric motor enough to fit inside a car, and it is the finished material India is least able to make for itself. The scheme meant to change that has now reached bidding.

• Neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) is the strongest permanent magnet in wide use.
• Samarium cobalt is weaker but holds its magnetism at high temperature, so defence and aerospace use it.
• Electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, electronics and defence all run on these magnets.
• Twenty bids came in under the scheme, and the technical bids were opened.