Today, India’s clean energy transitions are impossible without imported critical minerals and rare earths. In 2022 under the India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership, the two countries identified five target projects for potential investment in lithium and cobalt. India’s recent agreements with Namibia for lithium, rare earths and uranium as well as asset-acquisition talks in Zambia for copper and cobalt reflect a growing push to turn towards Africa. Despite previous political enthusiasm around “friend-shoring”, cooperation on critical minerals has struggled to move beyond dialogue with the United States. India has built an impressive web of critical minerals partnerships.

Source: The Hindu January 15, 2026 08:59 UTC