Thank you for the kind reply. I have made note.
Yes, I do realise that electricity will be a pricey affair. I travel frequently, but my base for the time being is India.
Another question on mining - if I opt to not go with hardware now, will it be worth investing in mining pools (rather, the contracts that they offer)? Such as those offered in GM (reading mixed reviews) or pool(dot)bitcoin(dot)com?
I think you are talking about cloud mining, where you pay and 'rent' mining hardware and they do the mining for you right? This is most likely a ponzi, meaning a
scam, where they pay users with other's investment and magically disappear after that.
Stay away from cloud mining sites, and if you are ever unsure, you can always ask around and check reviews first. Remember!
Well known sites are Scrypt.cc and Cloudthink.io, and they are both gone now.
If you are still thinking about profitability of mining, I found a good website that you can check out.
It says that unless you have a good and specialized hardware, it would not be that worth it. (Plus you are wasting a lot of electricity
)
https://bitcoinworldwide.com/mining/profitability/https://bitcoinworldwide.com/mining/calculator/Cheers!