AINEWS
IREL, NTPC Mining and four others were listed at a Mandalay mining forum. India has separately explored a deal with the Kachin Independence Army, which controls the heavy rare earth mining hubs.
India's ambassador to Myanmar, Abhay Thakur, named six Indian firms now engaging with Myanmar's rare-earth sector at a Mandalay mining forum: state-owned IREL, NTPC Mining, Himadri Specialty, Oceanic Sands, PrNd Metal & Magnets, and Jai Puri Holdings, even as Chinese export curbs tighten on heavy rare earths, the dysprosium and terbium that keep permanent magnets from losing their field at working temperature.
The move runs on two tracks in parallel: an official New Delhi–Naypyidaw engagement, and a separate channel to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the ethnic armed group that controls the heavy-rare-earth mining hubs in Kachin state near the Chinese border. Mine access does not exist on the official line alone, because the ore sits in KIA-controlled territory; the KIA channel without official cover would not survive the politics of dealing with a rebel group while engaging the central government. New Delhi is sustaining both to move any material at all.
Reuters has reported that an estimated nearly half the world's heavy rare earths are mined in Myanmar's Kachin state and shipped across the border to China for processing into the permanent magnets that power EV motors and wind-turbine generators. China's grip on the separation and magnet-making step is what gives a Kachin mine its strategic weight. Ore is fungible; refined magnets are not, and a single heavy-rare-earth element like dysprosium can be the difference between a magnet that holds at 180°C and one that does not.
The official track has its own clock. Min Aung Hlaing, who led Myanmar's 2021 coup and now heads the post-coup government, made an official visit to India in May–June 2026, according to Thakur. Two Indian delegations have visited Myanmar on rare earths and critical minerals, one in December 2024 and another in February 2026, and India's Ministry of External Affairs confirmed deepening critical-minerals cooperation in a June 1, 2026 readout. The Mandalay mining forum sits inside that line.
The KIA channel sits beside it. Reuters reported in September 2025 that India was exploring a rare-earth deal with the Kachin Independence Army, a separate track from the bilateral engagement. State-owned IREL and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials were among those in discussions to collect and transport samples from KIA-controlled mines. Reuters framed the move as a direct response to Chinese export curbs; the public sourcing has not, to date, confirmed completed sample collection or tonnage flow.
The firm list covers the full chain. IREL is India's state-owned rare-earth handler; NTPC Mining is the mining arm of state power generator NTPC, which has its own reasons to want magnet supply. The four smaller names sit closer to the magnet-making end. The roster points beyond a buying mission: ore from Kachin, processing in India, magnets for Indian EV and wind-turbine manufacturing.
Thakur cast the engagement as a "win-win": India's critical-minerals need plus Myanmar's sustainable-mining upside. The second half does not hold up as cleanly. ORF analysis has flagged Kachin mining's environmental and labor record, and a separate ORF piece has questioned whether the geology and the politics actually deliver the supply India is looking for. The Diplomat has described the dual-track as a gamble that ties New Delhi to both a junta and an ethnic armed group, a political exposure the public record does not yet show India has resolved.
The dual-track also points to a wider shift. Chinese export curbs have pushed India into engagement with non-traditional partners: a junta-led government on one side, an ethnic armed group on the other. The wider watch item is whether the same playbook shows up in India's critical-minerals outreach to other contested jurisdictions.
The next test is whether tonnage moves. Thakur named the firms at Mandalay; sample collection from KIA-controlled mines has been discussed, not confirmed in the public record. The first dated shipment out of Kachin, or its absence, will tell readers whether the dual-track is a supply-chain shift or a forum speech.