e-Waste Management
Steps towards sustainability: Minimising digital carbon footprint
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: carbon footprint and factors responsible
Mains level: India's digital carbon footprint, concerns, Government intervention and industry initiatives,
What’s the news?
- The UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report for 2022 highlights a sobering reality: India’s carbon emissions policy, as of 2022, falls short of significantly reducing the national carbon footprint.
Central idea
- India, as one of the world’s major contributors to global warming, is facing a concerning trend with the highest growth rate in carbon emissions. Recent years have witnessed a significant increase in electronic device usage, which has given rise to a pressing issue: the digital carbon footprint. To effectively combat this issue, it is imperative to adopt a multipronged approach.
What is meant by carbon footprint?
- A carbon footprint is a measure of the total amount of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2 and other carbon compounds, that are emitted into the atmosphere as a result of human activities, particularly the consumption of goods and services, energy production, transportation, and various industrial processes.
What is meant by digital carbon footprint?
- A digital carbon footprint refers to the environmental impact associated with the use of digital technologies, including electronic devices, software applications, and data centers.
Digital Carbon Footprint: A Growing Concern
- Hardware Production: The production of hardware devices like laptops, smartphones, and microprocessors is a significant contributor to the digital carbon footprint. The machines used in manufacturing these devices emit substantial amounts of carbon dioxide during the process.
- Energy Consumption During Device Use: Electronic devices require electricity for their operation. If the electricity used comes from non-renewable sources, such as coal or natural gas, the emissions generated during each device’s use add to its digital carbon footprint.
- Smartphone Charging Emissions: Research conducted in 2021 revealed that global smartphone charging alone releases more than 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
- Data Centers:
- The software used on electronic devices is typically stored and maintained in large data centers. These data centers demand a constant and intensive supply of electricity to operate efficiently and prevent system failures.
- According to a 2022 report by the International Energy Agency, data centers contribute significantly to global electricity use, accounting for approximately 1–1.5 percent, which is equivalent to the combined electricity consumption of Germany and Japan.
- Data Center Cooling Systems: In addition to the energy consumed for computing operations, data storage facilities require additional electricity to power massive cooling systems. These systems ensure that the servers and storage devices in data centers operate optimally, contributing further to the digital carbon footprint.
- Digital Software Usage:
- Every action in the life cycle of digital entities, whether it’s hardware or software, consumes energy and thereby contributes to the carbon footprint.
- For instance, a seemingly simple action like conducting a Google search results in the creation of 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide emissions.
- Given the scale of online searches, this adds up to a substantial daily contribution, with Google’s operations, cloud services, and devices emitting over 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020.
- Corporate Efforts and Carbon Reduction:
- Companies like Apple are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint by improving energy efficiency, adopting low-carbon design principles, and striving for carbon neutrality in their operations and supply chains.
- Apple, for example, has reduced its carbon emissions by 40 percent between 2015 and 2022 and aims to achieve a 100 percent carbon-neutral supply chain and products by 2030.
- Global Emission Reduction Goals: Despite commendable efforts by individual organizations, such initiatives alone may not be sufficient to meet the ambitious global emission reduction targets set by agreements like the Paris Agreement, which seeks to reduce emissions by 45 percent by 2030.
Government Intervention and Legislation
- Global Goals and Emission Reductions: Government intervention is a crucial factor in achieving global climate goals. Some nations have implemented legislated emission reduction targets, which play a pivotal role in driving the efforts of technology organizations.
- Inspiration from the United States: For instance, Apple’s initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint draw inspiration from the United States’ National Climate Task Force. This federal task force is dedicated to achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, providing a clear mandate and incentive for companies to align with emission reduction goals.
- Legislation in the Netherlands: Similarly, the Netherlands has enacted climate legislation, including a target of achieving a 49 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
- International Policies: Various other countries, including Denmark and the United Kingdom, have implemented policies and acts addressing carbon footprint reduction. These initiatives underline the global commitment to mitigating climate change and push technology companies to align their practices accordingly.
- Indian Power Savings Guide: In India, the Ministry of Power’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has established the Power Savings Guide. This initiative specifically targets technology emissions and includes an energy efficiency label for electronic devices.
- Eco-Labels and Certifications: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) offer the Energy Star program, which certifies energy-efficient products. These certifications, known as eco-labels, are part of a broader solution called ‘green computing,’ aimed at reducing the digital carbon footprint.
Way forward: Green computing
- Energy Efficiency Focus: Green Computing is dedicated to enhancing the energy efficiency and reducing the environmental impact of computer systems. This approach aims to lower the digital carbon footprint associated with both hardware and software production and consumption.
- Electricity Source Significance: A critical aspect of reducing the digital carbon footprint is the source of electricity used to power electronic devices. Initiatives aimed at increasing the proportion of renewable energy in a nation’s electricity supply are vital for emissions reduction.
- India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC): India, through initiatives like the NAPCC, emphasizes the importance of transitioning to renewable electricity sources to mitigate the carbon footprint attributed to energy consumption.
- Private Sector Initiatives: Private sector players are also actively involved in green computing developments. For instance, Apple’s iOS 16.1 features Clean Energy Charging, a provision that assesses the carbon emissions of the local energy grid and charges the iPhone when the electricity source is greener. This innovation is currently available in the United States as of July 2023.
- Green Software Foundation (GSF): The GSF plays a significant role in the field of green computing. It offers research, tools, and code for building applications with lower carbon footprints. Moreover, it provides frameworks for applications that can adapt their behavior based on the availability of clean, low-carbon electricity sources.
- Government Support: Governmental support for initiatives like GSF is essential, as these organizations provide information tools to enable sustainable software and hardware production.
- Eco-Labels and Certifications: Eco-labels like Energy Star and BEE offer valuable information to developers and users, helping them reduce their digital carbon footprint. Additionally, the private sector has made notable progress with initiatives like the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and TCO Certified, which focus on both hardware and software sustainability.
- Integration of Eco-Labels: Governments have the opportunity to support these eco-label initiatives or integrate them with their own labeling systems. This integration can provide consumers with comprehensive and accurate information about the environmental footprints of electronic devices.
- Improving Data Center Efficiency: Data centers, known for their high carbon footprints, require attention. Collaborating with initiatives like The Green Grid (TGG), which offer tools and expertise to enhance data center energy efficiency, can be instrumental in reducing their environmental impact.
Conclusion
- India’s digital carbon footprint is a pressing concern that requires immediate attention. Government intervention, industry initiatives, and public awareness are crucial components of the solution. By acknowledging the extent of the issue and framing policies to address it, significant progress can be made in reducing India’s carbon emissions and contributing to global climate goals.
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e-Waste Management
e-Waste Rules 2022
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: e-waste
Mains level: e-waste, impact, recycling challenges and management
Central Idea
- The burgeoning problem of managing e-waste is a cross cutting and persisting challenge in an era of rapid urbanisation, digitalisation and population growth. In November 2022, the Ministry of Environment and Forests notified a new set of e-waste rules, which will come into force from April 1, 2023. These rules address some of the critical issues but are silent on others.
What is e-Waste?
- e-waste refers to electronic waste, which includes any discarded electronic or electrical device, such as computers, mobile phones, televisions, and refrigerators.
- These devices contain hazardous substances such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) that can pose significant environmental and health risks if not disposed of properly.
Key components of e-waste Rules in India
- Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): The first set of e-waste Rules was notified in 2011 and came into effect in 2012. An important component of the Rules (2011) was the introduction of EPR. Under EPR compliance, producers are responsible for the safe disposal of electronic and electric products once the consumer discards them.
- Authorization and product stewardship: E-waste rules 2016, which were amended in 2018, were comprehensive and included provisions to promote authorisation and product stewardship. Other categories of stakeholders such Producer Responsibility Organisations (PRO) were also introduced in these rules.
- A digitalized systems approach, introduced in the new rules (2022): Standardizing the e-waste value chain through a common digital portal may ensure transparency and is crucial to reduce the frequency of paper trading or false trail i.e., a practice of falsely revealing 100% collection on paper while collecting and/or weighing scrap to meet targets
e-waste recycling: Analysis
- Two important stages of efficient e-waste recycling:
- 1. Component recovery (adequate and efficient recoveries of rare earth metals in order to reduce dependence on virgin resources) and
- 2. Residual disposal (safe disposal of the leftover residual during e-waste recycling).
- Concern: The rules briefly touch upon the two aspects, but do not clearly state the requirement for ensuring the recovery tangent.
- The new notification does away with PRO and dismantlers: All the responsibility of recycling vests on authorised recyclers; they will have to collect a quantity of waste, recycle them and generate digital certificates through the portal.
- Concern: Fresh challenges might emerge as companies are no longer required to engage with PROs and dismantlers, who partially ensured double verification in terms of quantity and quality of recycling.
- Lack of recognition to informal sector: The new rules for e-waste management in India do not recognize the crucial role played by the informal sector, which handles 95% of e-waste in the country. This lack of recognition may be due to the sector’s “illegality
- Concern: This move could further push e-waste handling into the shadows and make it more difficult to monitor and regulate. This could lead to environmental pollution, health hazards for workers, and inefficient e-waste management.
Impact on Health
- Incineration and leaching: Open incineration and acid leeching often used by informal workers are directly impacting the environment and posing serious health risks, especially to child and maternal health, fertility, lungs, kidney and overall well-being.
- Occupational health hazards: In India, many of these unskilled workers who come from vulnerable and marginalised are oblivious to the fact that that what they know as ‘black plastics’ have far reached occupational health hazards especially when incinerated to extract copper and other precious metals for their market value.
- Exposures to children: This ‘tsunami of e-waste rolling out of the world’, as described in an international forum on chemical treaties, poses several health hazards for women in this sector as they are left exposed to residual toxics elements mostly in their own households and often the presence of children.
- Constant contact with organic pollutants: According to a recent WHO report, a staggering 18 million children, some as young as five, often work alongside their families at e-waste dumpsites every year in low- and middle-income countries. Heavy metals such as lead, as well as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), like dioxins, and flame retardants (PBDEs) released into the environment, have also added to air, soil, and water pollution
Way ahead
- In order to ensure maximum efficiency, the activities of the recyclers must be recorded in the system.
- The authorities should periodically trace the quantity of e-waste that went for recycling vis-à-vis the recovery towards the end.
- Recognising the potential of informal sector in e- waste handling.
- For instance, ‘Karo Sambhav’, a Delhi-based PRO, has integrated informal aggregators in its collection mechanism. Through this initiative, e-waste is entered in a safe and structured system and the informal sector also has an advantage in terms of financial and legal security.
- In order to ensure the efficient implementation of the law, stakeholders must have the right information and intent to safely dispose of e-waste.
- There is need of strengthening reverse logistics, building capacity of stakeholders, improving existing infrastructure, enhancing product designing, rationalising input control and adopting green procurement practices.
- Provide doorstep collection to consumers.
Conclusion
- e-waste recycling and management have become a major environmental challenge in the modern world, as the volume of e-waste generated continues to grow rapidly. Simultaneous efforts needed to increase awareness and improve infrastructure for effective e-waste management. Moreover, robust collection and recycling system and required to meet legislative requirements.
Mains Question
Q. What is e- waste? Discuss the set of e-waste rules in India and suggest what needs to be done for effective e- waste management?
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e-Waste Management
Consumer Affairs Ministry unveils ‘Right to Repair’ Portal
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Right to Repair
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Food and Consumer Affairs Minister introduced a host of new initiatives, including a right to repair portal.
Right to Repair portal
- On the ‘right to repair’ portal, manufacturers would share the manual of product details with customers so that they could either repair by self, by third parties, rather than depend on original manufacturers.
- Initially, mobile phones, electronics, consumer durables, automobile and farming equipments would be covered.
What is Right to Repair?
- It refers to proposed government legislation that would allow consumers the ability to repair and modify their own consumer products (e.g. electronic, automotive devices).
- The idea behind “right to repair” is in the name: If you own something, you should be able to repair it yourself or take it to a technician of your choice.
- People are pretty used to this concept when it comes to older cars and appliances, but right-to-repair advocates argue that modern tech, especially anything with a computer chip inside, is rarely repairable.
The Right to Repair movement aims for:
- Easy repair: The device should be constructed and designed in a manner that allows easy repairs
- Access to critical components: End users and independent repair providers should be able to access original spare parts and tools (software as well as physical tools) needed to repair the device at fair market conditions
- No technical barriers: Repairs should by design be possible and not hindered by software programming
- Proper communication: The repairability of a device should be clearly communicated by the manufacturer.
How did it came to existence?
- The average consumer purchases an electronic gadget, knowing that it will very quickly become obsolete as its manufacturer releases newer and more amped up version.
- As your device grows older, issues start to crop up — your smartphone may slow down to a point where it is almost unusable, or your gaming console may require one too many hard resets.
- When this happens, more often than not, you are left at the mercy of manufacturers who make repairs inaccessible and an inordinately expensive affair.
Why is such right significant?
- Exorbitant repair price: Often, manufacturers reduce the durability of the product, compelling consumers to either repurchase the product or get it repaired at exorbitant prices affixed by the manufacturers.
- Lifespan enhancement: The goal of the movement is to increase the lifespan of products and to keep them from ending up in landfills.
- Against planned obsolescence: The electronic manufacturers are encouraging such culture so that devices are designed specifically to last a limited amount of time and to be replaced.
- Scarcity of natural resources: Obsolescence leads to immense pressure on the environment and wasted natural resources.
- Mitigating climate change: Manufacturing an electronic device is a highly polluting process. It makes use of polluting sources of energy, such as fossil fuel.
- Boost to repair economy: Right to repair advocates also argue that this will help boost business for small repair shops, which are an important part of local economies.
Issues with obsolete devices
- Unfair trade practice: For manufacturers, either of these options is a win-win case, because high-priced repairs, as well as new sales, mean more profits.
- High cost to consumers: This often led to higher consumer costs or drive consumers to replace devices instead of repairing them.
- Generation of E-waste: The global community is concerned over the continuously growing size of the e-waste stream.
- Recyclability: Up to 95% of raw materials used to produce electronic devices can be recycled, while the vast majority of newly produced devices use little to none recycled material due to the higher cost.
Why do electronic manufacturers oppose this movement?
Large tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Tesla, have been lobbying against the right to repair.
- IPR violations through reverse engineering: Their argument is that opening up their intellectual property to third party repair services.
- Threats to device safety: Amateur repairers could lead to exploitation and impact the safety and security of their devices.
- Personal data security: Tesla, for instance, has fought against right to repair advocacy, stating that such initiatives threaten data security and cyber security.
- Sheer casualization: Tech giant has allowed repairs of its devices only by authorised technicians and not providing spare parts or DIY manuals on how to fix its products.
Right to Repair in India
The ‘right to repair’ is not recognised as a statutory right in India, but certain pronouncements within the antitrust landscape have tacitly recognized the right.
- Necessary consumer right: Monopoly on repair processes infringes the customer’s’ “right to choose” recognised by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
- Acknowledgment by agencies: Consumer disputes jurisprudence in the country has also partially acknowledged the right to repair.
- Upholding Competition: In Shamsher Kataria v Honda Siel Cars India Ltd (2017), for instance, the Competition Commission of India ruled that restricting the access of independent automobile repair units to spare parts as anti-competitive.
- Part of consumer welfare: The CCI observed that the practice was detrimental to consumer welfare.
- Laws for recycle: The e-waste (management and handling) rules addresses not only to handle the waste in an environmentally friendly manner, but also has laid down rules about its transportation, storage and recycling.
Way forward
- Avoiding blanket waiver: While necessary clauses to maintain the quality of the product can be included, a blanket waiver should be avoided.
- For instance, the quality assurance clause can be incorporated for use of company-recommended spare parts and certified repair shops.
- Making available the repair manual: Making repair manuals available to certified business owners could go a long way in balancing the rights of consumers and manufacturers.
- Sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect IP rights: Manufacturers can sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect the IP with certified repairers/businesses.
- Alloting certification/license: Further, the lack of certification/licensing of repair workers is seen as a reflection of their lack of skills.
- Insert right to repair in Consumer protection Act: The ‘right to repair’ can be said to be implicit in Section 2(9) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
- Reparability parameter: The product liability clause under Section 84 can be amended and expanded to impose product liability concerning various reparability parameters of the product.
- Duration of product liability: The duration of imposing product liability may vary depending on the product and its longevity.
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e-Waste Management
Critical Minerals: Opprtunity for Aatmanirbharta in Energy security.
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Critical Minerals,rare earth minerals
Mains level: critical minerals and applications ,Aatmanirbharta in Energy security.
Context
- In his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted the country to pursue aatmanirbhar bharta in energy by focusing on clean energy technologies. Securing access to key critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals is critical for building resilient and indigenous supply chains for clean energy technologies.
Background
- Concerns over the pricing and availability of oil and gas in the wake of the Ukraine crisis continue to fuel global policy debates on energy security. However, the fragility of clean energy supply chains obscures pathways for countries to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.
- Imported inflationary pressures through exposure to volatile oil and gas markets also pose risks to macroeconomic growth and stability, particularly for India, import dependent for around 85% of its oil and half of its gas needs.
What are Critical Minerals?
- Critical minerals are elements that are the building blocks of essential modern-day technologies, and are at risk of supply chain disruptions.
- These minerals are now used everywhere from making mobile phones, computers to batteries, electric vehicles and green technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.
- Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
- However, such lists mostly include graphite, lithium, cobalt, rare earths and silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips, solar panels and batteries.
- Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
Why is this resource critical?
- As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.
- Any supply shock can severely imperil the economy and strategic autonomy of a country over-dependent on others to procure critical minerals.
- But these supply risks exist due to rare availability, growing demand and complex processing value chain.
- Many times the complex supply chain can be disrupted by hostile regimes, or due to politically unstable regions.
- They are critical as the world is fast shifting from a fossil fuel-intensive to a mineral-intensive energy system.
What are Rare Earth Metals?
- The rare earth elements (REE) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
- Rare earth elements are an essential part of many high-tech devices.
- They have a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions.
- Significant defense applications include electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems.
- Rare earth minerals, with names like neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, are crucial to the manufacture of magnets used in industries of the future, such as wind turbines and electric cars.
Applications of REMs in various fields:
- Electronics: Television screens, computers, cell phones, silicon chips, monitor displays, long-life rechargeable batteries, camera lenses, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), baggage scanners, marine propulsion systems.
- Defense Sector: Rare earth elements play an essential role in our national defense. The military uses night-vision goggles, precision-guided weapons, communications equipment, GPS equipment, batteries, and other defense electronics. These give the United States military an enormous advantage. Rare earth metals are key ingredients for making the very hard alloys used in armored vehicles and projectiles that shatter upon impact.
- Renewable Energy: Solar panels, Hybrid automobiles, wind turbines, next-generation rechargeable batteries, bio-fuel catalysts.
- Manufacturing: High strength magnets, metal alloys, stress gauges, ceramic pigments, colorants in glassware, chemical oxidizing agent, polishing powders, plastics creation, as additives for strengthening other metals, automotive catalytic converters
- Medical Science: Portable x-ray machines, x-ray tubes, magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) contrast agents, nuclear medicine imaging, cancer treatment applications, and for genetic screening tests, medical and dental lasers.
- Technology: Lasers, optical glass, fiber optics, masers, radar detection devices, nuclear fuel rods, mercury-vapor lamps, highly reflective glass, computer memory, nuclear batteries, high-temperature superconductors.
DO YOU KNOW?
Metals such as cadmium, lead are often used in manufacturing plastic and over time can enter coastal waters. These are acutely harmful for coastal wildlife and humans.Different kinds of plastic releases different kinds of metals that may release when exposed to water and UV lights.
What are the challenges in accessing Critical minerals?
- Deposits in geopolitically sensitive regions: Reserves are often concentrated in regions that are geopolitically sensitive or fare poorly from an ease of doing business perspective.
- Controlled production: A portion of existing production is controlled by geostrategic competitors. For example, China wields considerable influence in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo through direct equity investments and its Belt and Road Initiative.
- Agreements in advance from outside: Future mine production is often tied up in off take agreements, in advance, by buyers from other countries to cater to upcoming demand.
A step taken by Indian government for sourcing strategic minerals
- For sourcing of strategic minerals, the Indian government established Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL) in 2019 with the mandate to secure mineral supply for the domestic market.
What is Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL)?
- Joint venture: A joint venture company namely Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL) set up with the participation of three Central Public Sector Enterprises namely, National Aluminium Company Ltd.(NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd.(HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL).
- Objective: The objective of constituting KABIL is to ensure a consistent supply of critical and strategic minerals to Indian domestic market. While KABIL would ensure mineral security of the Nation, it would also help in realizing the overall objective of import substitution.
Suggestions based on Council on energy environment and water (CEEW) to achieve the objective of KABIL
- Mapping out the domestic requirement: Figure out the mineral requirements of the domestic industry. This could best be accomplished by a task force which includes the ministries of power, new and renewable energy, heavy industry, and science and technology.
- Clear road map for indigenous manufacturing: Five year road maps with clear targets for deployment and indigenous manufacturing across clean energy applications would provide visibility to domestic investors. Assess the technology mix that would support this deployment. On this basis, determine the quantities of minerals necessary to support indigenous manufacturing.
- Better coordination between different stakeholders: Coordinate with the domestic industry to determine where strategic interventions by the government would be necessary for the purpose.KABIL could collaborate with industry to bolster its market intelligence capabilities for tracking global supply side developments.
- Preemptive agreements through KABIL for reliable supply: If conducive investment opportunities don’t exist KABIL should preemptively sign off take agreements with global mineral suppliers to secure future production. It could aggregate reliable supply of minerals for domestic requirements and sign back to back sales agreements with the domestic industry .Such large scale centralised national procurement could be done at preferential terms.
- Joint Investment In mining assets to mitigate investment risks: The government should jointly invest in mining assets with geostrategic partners. KABIL should make equity investments in mining jurisdictions that private sector investors may deem too risky. It should leverage government to government partnerships to mitigate investment risks. This could be done through joint investments with sovereign entities from geostrategic partners or private sector entities with expertise in specific geographies.
- Finding the alternatives: Technologies such as sodium ion batteries could reduce requirements for sourcing minerals from beyond India’s borders. It could also propose co development of such technologies with geostrategic partners.
- Developing policies on sustainable urban mining and recycling: Develop policies on urban mining aimed at recycling mineral inputs from deployments that have completed their useful life. These could help further reduce dependence on international sourcing.
Conclusion
- Besides Ukraine, other potential geopolitical flash points also exist against a backdrop of dwindling multilateral cooperation. India must act immediately and decisively to mitigate these risks to its energy security.
Mains Question
Q.What are critical minerals? Why the critical minerals are so important? What steps India can take to achieve the objective of Atmanirbhar Bharat in domestic mineral supply and thereby mitigating energy security risks?
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