JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.89, JUNE 2017 723 BOOK REVIEW CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES IN MINERAL EXPLORATION AND MINING: A.M. Pophare, H.S. Kale and M.L. Dora (Eds), Jour. Geosci. Res., Special Volume No.1, 2017. This publication has arrived at a time when the mineral-focussed private sector in the country is debating on the usefulness of the new mineral exploration policy, the new MM (D&R)Act-2015 and the new Mineral Concession Rules-2016. The general consensus of the Indian private sector as well as overseas investors is that the Auction mode of granting Mining Lease and Composite License is not good enough to encourage private sector to invest in mineral exploration in the country. Yes, India has the right geological environment for making new discoveries as may be noticed in all the papers published in the Special Volume of the Journal of Geoscience Research under review. The extant laws, namely MM(D&R)Act-2015, MC Rules-2016 and National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP)-2016 are least helpful to the private explorers. The complex auction-related licence granting procedures adopted by the Ministry of Mines would only serve to drastically slow down exploration and development of new mines in the country. The international best practice adopted by most countries in the world for grant of licenses for exploration is first-cum-first serve (FCFS), not auctioning. Govt of India’s mineral policy should recognise the important fact that GSI has been continuously making new mineral discoveries and such discoveries should immediately become available to the private sector and PSUs on FCFS basis for detailed exploration and conversion of mineral Resources into mineable Reserves. The auction mode of grant of licenses appears to have been adopted by the Ministry of Mines on the premise of Resource Nationalism and revenue-generating potential of known Mineral Resources and new mineral discoveries. In so doing, the Government of India seems to have over looked the fact that a large portion of the over 1,000,000 sq km of OGP area (officially 5.71 lakh sq km) would require detailed prospecting to G3/G2/G1 levels by GSI/MECL and State GDMs and subsequent packaging of individual prospects to throw them open for auctioning. This would be a very slow process in the hands of the Government Departments engaged in mineral exploration. Just about 25 areas have been auctioned in the last 2 years most of which are bulk minerals. It also involves expenditure of the order of a few thousand crores of rupees. Why should the Government of India spend tax payers money on mineral prospecting when the private sector, both Indian and international, is willing to invest provided the Ministry adopts international best practices. The potential for developing several gold mines in the country was realized as long ago as 50 years, in Aug. 1960, when Mr. Sardar Swaran Singh, the then Union Minister of Steel & Mines, inaugurated the first all India Seminar on Gold Mining Industry in India convened by the Geological Society of India, Bangalore. Subsequently, in year 1993, the Government of India realized the pressing need for privatizing and reforming mineral exploration and mining in the country especially for gold, diamond, platinum, nickel, base metals and defence related strategic metals. This realization led the Govt. of India to adopt the first ever liberalized National Mineral Policy (NMP) in 1993. The corresponding amendments to the Mines & Minerals Development & Regulation Act were adopted in 1994 and 2000. The NMP-1993 was further refined in 2008 but it’s intentions did not see the light of the day in the form of Acts and Rules. In place of NMP-2008, NMEP- 2016 with auction-mode as the principal mode of granting mineral concessions came to be adopted. Inordinate delays, lengthy procedures, very high taxation and corruption have triggered flight of the Indian private investments into overseas mineral-friendly destinations. FDI and inflow of technical expertise have dried up. Stand-alone commercial mineral exploration in the country has come to a standstill. There is no stock-exchange dedicated for listing of mineral exploration companies. As a result of all these deficiencies new mineral resource-discoveries, specifically of precious metals, base metals, defence-related strategic metals, fertilizer minerals, Rare Metals and REEs have become a thing of the pre-2008. At the same time, the pace of conversion of known Mineral Resources into mineable Mineral Reserves has also slowed down. In the most recent “Annual Mining Destination Survey-2016” the Frazer Institute has ranked India very low. In the Policy Perception Index, India has gone down significantly after the introduction of MMDR Act-2015. The Best Practices Mineral Potential Index of India is 37% compared to Western Australia 86%. The result is total lack of any new mineral resource-discoveries either by the private or PSUs. All of the internationally famed exploration and mining companies have left India. Amongst them are De Beers, Pebble Creek, Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Arcellor Mittal. Posco has almost initiated getting out of India. Rio Tinto, famous for their Bunder Diamond discovery in Madhya Pradesh, is preparing to leave or have already left the country. Indian companies too have chosen to invest in many overseas investor-friendly countries. From a sustainable economic point of view it is important to recognize that the volume and value of Mineral Resources exploited today should be concurrently replenished for future generation through continuous exploration. The papers published in the special volume under review cover a range of minerals and metals besides dealing with National Mineral Exploration Policies. The editors – A.M.Pophare, H.S.Kale and M.L.Dora have provided an excellent review of all the full papers published in this JGR Special volume. A total of 5 papers including abstracts deal with the new policy and strategies for future exploration and development in the country. There are 5 papers on gold; 5 on copper, lead, zinc; 4 on Ni + PGE; 7 papers on uranium; 9 on coal; 9 papers deal with Niobium, Tantalum (COLTAN), REE and tungsten; 4 on iron ores; one on graphite; 1 on limestone and 2 on bauxite. There are 4 papers on shale gas and CBM and one on petroleum. This is an excellent coverage of all the mineral resources. There is an abstract dealing with diamond. I present my review of the published papers under the following headings. NMEP-2016: The leading paper is on the National Mineral Policy by Randiv et al. from Nagpur University. They have provided a detailed historical account of the development of mineral related policies since 1948. S.N.Meshram, Additional Director General and Head of National Mission-II, GSI has provided a review of the National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP-2016). The author says that the NMEP- 2016 is innovative and meant to encourage participation of the private investors in mineral exploration and development. A.K.Chatterjee, who earlier headed GSIs Mission-II has written about new strategies and goals for mineral sector in the country. S.K.Wadhawan, K.Koteswara Rao, D.S.Jeere and P.Tarafdar have contributed on strategies for mineral resources development through enhancing the rate of mineral exploration in the country under NMEP-2016. Gold & Basemetals: Chakravarti et al. have discussed QPC hosted gold mineralization in Singhbhum craton. The QPC has considerable dimension in the field, therefore, should be thrown open for exploration