IIRF Webinar on – “India’s Rare Earth Potential: A Fleeting Opportunity”

Watch out for our Next Event

3rd July, 2021, 7.30 PM (IST)

The next big event to watch out is scheduled for 03 July on Rare Earth  being organised by IIRF. Find the main flyer below. To join the webinar 5 minutes prior to the designated date and time, pls press  https://meet google.com/iwj-onvh-gsw

To join the webinar 5 minutes prior to the designated date and time, pls press  https://meet google.com/iwj-onvh-gsw

BIODATA OF OUR EMMINENT SPEAKERS

Lt Gen CA Krishnan, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM (Retd), is a former Deputy Chief of the Army and a former Member of the Armed Forces Tribunal. A post graduate in Defence studies and M Phil in strategic affairs and Defence Management, he is also a post graduate diploma in Human Rights Laws from NLSIU, Bangalore and a post graduate diploma in journalism. He has four decades of command and staff experience at various levels across a wide spectrum of terrain and environment which include the Siachin glacier, high altitude areas of Leh and Arunachal Pradesh, combating insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, highly active line of control of Jammu & Kashmir and the Plains and deserts of Punjab and Rajasthan. He has also been the Director General of Man Power Planning and Personal Services of the Indian Army. Having been a Corps commander and Deputy Chief of the Army, he carries vast experience of commanding large formations while also being intimately involved in apex level conceptual evaluations, perspective planning and higher defence management. As the Deputy Chief, he was responsible for overseeing the perspective planning, financial planning and modernization of the Indian army. This included formulation of equipment road map to cater for the future needs of the Indian army as well as its capital acquisition programs. He has been on the Board of Directors of Bharat Electronics Ltd and Bharat Dynamics Ltd, two of India’s leading Public sector undertakings manufacturing defence equipment. He is widely travelled and has been part of and led numerous delegations representing the country. He is a prolific writer with numerous published articles on a wide variety of subjects like strategic issues, Rare Earths, Space mining, Energy etc. He also provides consultancy to defence industries seeking to expand / streamline their existing defence manufacturing base as well as to potential entrepreneurs contemplating entry into the defence manufacturing arena

Dr Amit Tripathi is a professional mineral explorer with specialization in establishing  structural controls of mineralization. He is Founder and Director of MPXG Exploration and has been part of senior management of many international junior mineral exploration companies, prominent being VP Exploration for Sunward Resources, Canada; Exploration Manager for Goviex Uranium, Niger and Exploration Manager for Goviex Gold, Australia. In over 20 countries he has managed successful exploration projects in a variety of occurrences of gold, base metals, uranium, diamonds, Tin, COLTAN, Nickel etc. Major exploration successes are 14 Moz Au-Cu Porphyry in Colombia, +170Mlb Uranium in Niger, and a major lateritic iron ore discovery in Guinea

Mr Grant Smith.

Mr Grant graduated from the University of New South Wales in 1980 with a B (Applied) Sc. and began his minerals marketing career 40 years ago in the Australian coal industry. From 1987 he has worked in the mineral sands industry and in 1994 he established his own company, Australasian Minerals & Trading (AM&T), specialising in the international marketing and production of industrial minerals and particularly mineral sands. AM&T has offices and operations in Australia, Singapore, Kalimantan, Indonesia and Osaka, Japan.

His experience has included the marketing or production of coal, uranium, all mineral sands, garnet, iron oxide, barite and silica sand/flour to a wide variety of industries worldwide. Grant is a director of his own companies and he lives and works in Perth, Australia.

In 1999 until late 2016 when the industry was shut down, he was involved in the Indian mineral sands sector initiating initial exploration, resource drilling, plant design and construction and finally the marketing of mineral sands products. This work was undertaken in conjunction with India’s first privately owned mineral sands company.

Since late 2015 Grant has been Chairman of Less Common Metals, a UK based rare earth metals and alloy production company and the only such non-Chinese based or non-Chinese owned, RE metals and alloys company in the world.

Dr Yamuna Singh

• Post-Graduate and Ph. D in Geology.

• Served nearly 36 years, and retired as Head, Mineralogy-Petrology-Geochemistry, AMD, Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.

• Discovered several strategic and critical minerals of Li, Be, Nb, Ta, Zr, Hf, Sn, Cs, REE, Th, U in parts of M.P., Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telangana.

• Reported first world occurrence of metamict mineral ‘Alluaudite’ from India.

• Innovatively applied several analytical techniques in characterisation of radioactive ores and minerals of U, Th, Be, Li, Nb, Ta, Sn, REE, Zr from diversified geological settings of India.

• Published 156 research papers in referred national and international journals and conference proceedings.

• Edited 16 Volumes of Journals.

• Authored one book entitled, “Rare Earth Element Resources: Indian Context, Published by Springer.

• A recipient of  several National Awards, namely, (i) National Geoscience Award from Government of India; (ii) Narayanswami Award and (iii) Radhakrishna Prize from Geological Society of India; (iv) Prof. S.M. Ramananda Setty Award from Mineralogical Society of India; (v) Sitaram Rungta Memorial Award from Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists, Bhubaneswar; and (vi) Hindi Sevi Samman Puraskar from Govt. of India.

• Guided and Supervised two Ph. D students.

• Served as Member/Subject Expert, Board of Studies, Applied Geochemistry, Osmania University; and Integrated M. Sc (Earth Science), Urdu University, Kurnool, A.P.

• Served as adjudicator of Ph. D thesis; and theory question paper setter for M. Tech and M. Sc

• An elected Fellow of Telangana Academy of Sciences, Hyderabad.

• A Life Fellow/Member of 15 Scientific Societies/Professional Bodies.

• Presently serving as Visiting Faculty, University of Hyderabad.

• Guest Faculty in Geological Survey of India Training School, Hyderabad.

• Expert Speaker, Professional Development Programme, Mining Division, Engineering Staff College of India, Hyderabad.

• Expert, Commission for Scientific & Technical Terminology, MHRD (Department of Higher Education), Government of India.                                                                                                              

Mr Pramod Kumar 

Former Additional Director                                                                                                                             Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (A.M.D.),     Department of Atomic Energy(DAE), Government of IndiaCurrently expert member of Regional Exploratory Advisory Committee of AMD, Northern Region, New Delhi. 

Over 37 years of professional experience in geological exploration of metalliferous minerals (mainly Uranium and other Atomic minerals including rare earths and beach sand) in diverse geological terrains of the country.

Specialization in field investigations-survey, geological mapping, sampling techniques and explorations, modeling, borehole planning and drilling activities for resource evaluation of atomic minerals.

Experience related to geochemical, geophysical methods, remote sensing, radiometric and laboratory techniques, geo-statistical treatment of data and its synthesis for convergence of evidences and meaningful interpretations to locate the ore deposits.

Monitoring and executing the field projects (both Brown field and Green field) and imparting technical, operational and administrative guidance in support of the exploration blocks and assessment of commercial and industrial viabilities.

Comprehensive exploration strategy formulation and designing the technical program of work related to pan India regional exploration centers, steering their performance with periodic review and modification as required. Policy and works/implementations related to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Atomic Minerals Concession rules (AMCR-2016) , MMDR (1957) and Mineral Concession Rules-1960.

Field work covered the diverse geological terrains of the country namely (a) Quartz pebble conglomerate type of uranium deposits in the Dharwar Super group, Karnataka ( b) Vein type uranium deposits in the Singhbhum Shear Zones, Jharkhand (c) Carbonate hosted strata bound type of uranium deposit at Tummalapalle of Kadapa basin, Andhra Pradesh (d) Proterozoic metasediments of Champaner basin, Gujarat (e) Son Valley migmatites of  Sonbhadra/Mirzapur districts of  Uttar Pradesh  (e) Lesser Himalayan metasediments around Almora, Uttarakhand (f) The albitite related uranium deposits along the North Delhi Fold Belt of Delhi Supergroup in Haryana (g) Sandstone type of uranium deposits in the Mahadek Basin of Meghalaya.

Associated with the exploratory (pilot scale) mining that included activities such as shaft sinking, decline making, guiding of ore drive, underground mapping, channel sampling and preparation of assay plans etc., at Baghjata Mines of Singhbhum and Tummalapalle mine of Andhra Pradesh.

                                                          Educational Qualifications

M.Sc. (Applied Geology), 1978, University of Roorkee  (Now IIT-Roorkee)

B.Sc.(Geology ,Chemistry and Geography), 1976, Meerut University,(J.V. Jain Degree college, Saharanpur)

                                                    Membership of Professional Bodies

Fellow, Geological Society of India, Bangalore (F173).

Member, Indian Society of Remote Sensing.

Member, Indian Society of Applied Geochemists, (ISAG), Hyderabad. Member, Indian Geological Congress, Roorkee.

Faculty of Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) of BARC, Mumbai (AMD campus).

International Exposure   

As an Indian delegate participated in the International Conference on ‘Mineral Exploration in the New Millennium’, Toronto, Canada, the 5^th Decennial International Conference on Mineral Exploration (Sept 2007).

Member of Indian delegation team (officers of AMD, UCIL and NPCIL Department of Atomic Energy) to carry out “Due Diligence of Oak bay offer of Project Shiva, Johannesburg, South Africa. Due diligence report submitted to Govt. of India (2009).

Indian delegate at  the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria for a “Technical meeting on the development of the guidelines for the integrated use of Hydrological, Geophysical and Isotope tools in mining operations”, June 2018. Contributed an article. IAEA Report (June2018).

Research Publications: Over 50 research papers published in various national and international scientific publications.