​Magnetic moment: on India and rare earth elements

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At the end of 2025, rare earth elements sit in an awkward intersection between climate ambitions, industrial policy and geopolitics. They are not the most important minerals by volume in the clean energy economy but that has not stopped a small subset of them from becoming a gatekeeper for many of its important machines. The question today is not whether the world needs rare earths for its green transition but whether countries can build resilient and affordable supply chains without recreating the same environmental and governance problems in new places. The principal bottleneck is high-performance permanent magnets, especially neodymium-iron-boron magnets for EV motors and wind turbines. When supply falters, these elements, not all rare earths, pass the shock into economies. Likewise, countries can also announce new mines and still depend on others for chemical refining, which is to rare-earth elements what extraction is to crude oil, rather than mining itself. This structure is why China remains central to the supply chain even when deposits are found elsewhere.

This explains India’s late-2025 focus on magnets rather than just mining. The ₹7,280-crore scheme to establish an integrated manufacturing ecosystem for 6,000 tonnes of sintered rare earth permanent magnets a year signals that if India can make magnets domestically, it will reduce a high-impact import exposure and create a platform for downstream manufacturing in EVs, wind components and advanced electronics. However, significant challenges lie upstream of this chain. A major domestic source for rare earths is monazite-bearing beach sands, which in India lie alongside thorium and other minerals relevant to the nuclear programme. The sector is thus pushed closer to a punctilious governance regime requiring close coordination across regulators and public sector entities, and which has to treat waste management and community engagement as core industrial inputs. Second, while the National Critical Mineral Mission has assigned a large number of exploration projects through 2031 to the Geological Survey, it needs the state to also translate knowledge of deposits into separating and manufacturing capacity, which demands regulatory clarity, reliable public financing, and credible enforcement. Third, India needs to augment midstream capacity, including by making magnet production bankable through long-term offtake from EV and electronics firms, and investing in process innovation that reduces dependence on the most constrained elements. The next phase of the green transition will reward countries that can scale supply chains, avoid undermining green compliance and distribute rather than concentrate risk. For India, that means turning policy and intent into industrial capacity, with environmental credibility baked in.