Content
- Cyber Slavery: Trafficking of Indian Youth into Forced Cybercrime Networks
- Granth Kutir at Rashtrapati Bhavan: Institutionalising India’s Civilisational Knowledge Heritage
- Census 2027 and the Expanded Houselisting Phase: India’s Shift towards Data-Driven Governance
- India’s Global Hunt for Fugitives: Extradition Challenges in a Globalised Legal Order
- India’s ACC Battery PLI Scheme: Ambition–Execution Gap in Clean Energy Manufacturing
Cyber Slavery: Trafficking of Indian Youth into Forced Cybercrime Networks
Background and Why is it in News?
- A Hyderabad youth, lured by a high-paying digital sales job in Bangkok, was trafficked to Myanmar–Thailand border scam centres and forced into cyber fraud under coercion.
- Indian authorities recently rescued and repatriated hundreds of Indians trapped in similar cybercrime syndicates operating from Southeast Asia’s lawless border regions.
- The incident highlights the emergence of “cyber slavery”, where victims are trafficked not for manual labour but for forced participation in online scams.
Relevance
- GS 1 (Society): Highlights vulnerabilities arising from youth unemployment, migration aspirations, and digital skills being exploited in transnational human trafficking networks.
- GS 2 (Governance & IR): Exposes gaps in overseas citizen protection, consular responsibility, and cross-border cooperation against organised cybercrime.
- GS 3 (Internal Security & Cyber Security): Demonstrates convergence of human trafficking, cyber fraud, money laundering, and organised crime as an emerging non-traditional security threat.
What is Cyber Slavery?
- Cyber slavery refers to transnational human trafficking where victims are forcibly confined and compelled to execute online financial fraud, phishing, and digital scams under physical and psychological coercion.
- Victims are deceived with lucrative job offers, have passports confiscated, face violence, and are punished if daily cybercrime targets remain unmet.
Modus Operandi of Cyber Slavery Networks
Recruitment and Deception
- Recruiters advertise high-paying overseas jobs in digital marketing, customer service, or call centres, exploiting unemployment, gig insecurity, and aspirational migration among Indian youth.
- Fake interviews, luxury workplace videos, and promises of visas and accommodation are used to lower suspicion and accelerate overseas travel decisions.
Trafficking and Confinement
- Victims are transported legally to countries like Thailand, then illegally moved across porous borders into Myanmar-controlled zones beyond effective state policing.
- On arrival, passports, phones, and identity documents are seized, effectively trapping victims and eliminating escape options.
Forced Cybercrime Operations
- Trafficked individuals are compelled to work 18–20 hours daily running phishing scams, investment frauds, and romance scams targeting foreign victims through digital platforms.
- Failure to meet daily fraud quotas results in beatings, threats, starvation, or resale to other scam centres, reinforcing total control over victims.
Data and Scale of the Problem
- Indian agencies estimate thousands of Indians are currently trapped in cyber scam hubs across Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Philippines, forming a significant share of the exploited workforce.
- Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone reported 370 rescues in a recent coordinated operation, indicating regional vulnerability linked to youth unemployment and overseas job aspirations.
- International agencies link these cybercrime hubs to billions of dollars in global financial fraud annually, making cyber slavery a lucrative criminal enterprise.
Why Southeast Asia Has Become a Cyber Slavery Hub ?
- Weak governance, armed group control, and porous borders in Myanmar’s frontier regions allow cybercrime syndicates to operate beyond effective law enforcement reach.
- Proximity to international travel hubs like Bangkok facilitates easy recruitment, transit, and concealment of trafficking routes.
- Corruption, conflict, and limited extradition enforcement create safe havens for transnational cybercrime operations.
Human Rights and Ethical Dimensions
Violation of Fundamental Human Rights
- Cyber slavery violates the right to life and dignity, freedom from forced labour, and protection against trafficking, constituting a modern form of slavery.
- Victims experience severe psychological trauma, prolonged confinement, and moral injury from being forced to harm others digitally.
Gender and Social Vulnerabilities
- Young men form the majority of victims due to migration pressures, while women trafficked into cyber slavery face added risks of sexual violence and exploitation.
- Families often remain unaware due to misinformation, delayed contact, or fear instilled in victims by traffickers.
National Security and Economic Implications
- Forced cybercrime implicates victims in illegal activities, exposing them to legal risks while strengthening international fraud networks that drain global financial systems.
- The phenomenon undermines India’s cyber security reputation and increases diplomatic burdens for rescue, repatriation, and rehabilitation operations.
Institutional and Governance Challenges
- Limited awareness of cyber slavery among job seekers and local authorities delays prevention and early detection of trafficking attempts.
- Jurisdictional complexities, weak cross-border cooperation, and conflict zones restrict timely rescue and prosecution of traffickers.
- Victims often face stigma or suspicion upon return due to their coerced involvement in cybercrime activities.
Way Forward: Policy and Governance Measures
Prevention and Awareness
- Government must launch nationwide awareness campaigns warning against fraudulent overseas job offers, particularly targeting vulnerable districts with high migration aspirations.
- Mandatory verification of overseas recruitment agencies and stricter monitoring of online job portals can reduce deceptive recruitment.
Diplomatic and Law Enforcement Cooperation
- Strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation with Southeast Asian nations to dismantle scam centres and establish joint rescue protocols.
- Enhance intelligence-sharing, extradition mechanisms, and financial tracking of cybercrime syndicates operating transnationally.
Victim Rehabilitation and Legal Safeguards
- Repatriated victims must be treated as trafficking survivors, not criminals, with access to counselling, legal aid, skill rehabilitation, and livelihood reintegration.
- Clear legal frameworks are required to protect coerced victims from prosecution for crimes committed under duress.
Conclusion
- Cyber slavery represents a dangerous evolution of human trafficking in the digital age, merging organised crime, forced labour, and global cyber fraud into a single exploitative system.
- Addressing it requires coordinated prevention, international diplomacy, victim-centric rehabilitation, and recognition that cybercrime victims can also be cybercrime perpetrators under coercion.
Supporting Data & Numbers
- The UNODC (2023) estimated that organised cyber-fraud networks in Southeast Asia generate over USD 40 billion annually, making forced cybercrime one of the fastest-growing transnational criminal industries.
- According to INTERPOL, scam centres in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos employ over 300,000 trafficked individuals, many coerced into online fraud under threats, confinement, and physical violence.
- The US Institute of Peace (2024) reported that armed groups controlling Myanmar border regions earn 30–50% of their revenues from cyber-scam operations using trafficked labour.
- India’s MHA data indicates that overseas job fraud complaints increased by more than 85% between 2021 and 2024, with Southeast Asia emerging as the dominant destination region.
- The Reserve Bank of India recorded ₹1.25 lakh crore losses from digital fraud between 2020–2024, much of it linked to cross-border scam networks operating from Southeast Asia.
- ILO estimates suggest that forced labour in illicit economies yields three times higher profits per victim than traditional forced labour, explaining criminal syndicates’ rapid shift to cyber slavery.
- A 2024 ASEAN study found that over 70% of cyber-scam workers were recruited through fake job advertisements, primarily targeting unemployed youth with basic digital literacy.
- The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal shows that India receives over 1.2 million cybercrime complaints annually, increasing vulnerability to overseas cyber-fraud recruitment pipelines.
- The Global Slavery Index 2023 notes that modern slavery increasingly involves non-physical labour coercion, where digital skills replace manual labour as the exploited commodity.
‘Granth Kutir’ at Rashtrapati Bhavan: Preserving India’s Civilisational Knowledge Heritage
Background and Why is it in News?
- The President of India inaugurated ‘Granth Kutir’, a dedicated library at Rashtrapati Bhavan, showcasing over 2,300 classical Indian books and manuscripts.
- The initiative aims to preserve, digitise, and democratise access to India’s philosophical, scientific, and literary traditions through a curated institutional framework.
- It represents a significant step in integrating India’s ancient knowledge systems with modern archival, conservation, and digital dissemination technologies.
Relevance
- GS 1 (Art & Culture): Represents preservation of India’s classical texts, manuscripts, languages, and civilisational knowledge traditions across disciplines.
- GS 2 (Governance): Illustrates the role of constitutional institutions in cultural stewardship and state-led knowledge preservation initiatives.
What is Granth Kutir?
- Granth Kutir is a specialised knowledge repository housing rare manuscripts, classical texts, and scholarly works representing India’s intellectual traditions across philosophy, science, literature, and governance.
- The collection spans multiple centuries and languages, reflecting the continuity and diversity of India’s civilisational thought and scholarly output.
- It functions both as a physical archive and a digital knowledge platform, ensuring long-term preservation and wider scholarly access.
Composition and Nature of the Collection
Languages and Textual Diversity
- Manuscripts and books are available in 11 classical Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam, Odia, Persian, Bengali, and Arabic, reflecting India’s plural intellectual heritage.
- The multilingual composition highlights India’s historical openness to cross-cultural knowledge exchange and synthesis.
Thematic Coverage
- The collection covers disciplines such as philosophy, metaphysics, linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, governance, history, and devotional literature.
- Works include epics, philosophical treatises, scientific texts, commentaries, and rare scholarly compilations spanning religious and secular traditions.
Digitisation and Preservation Efforts
- All manuscripts and books housed in Granth Kutir have been systematically digitised to prevent physical degradation and ensure inter-generational knowledge transmission.
- Advanced conservation techniques and metadata cataloguing support long-term archival integrity and scholarly research usability.
- Digitisation aligns with global best practices in manuscript preservation and cultural heritage management.
Institutional and Governance Significance
- Granth Kutir strengthens Rashtrapati Bhavan’s role as a custodian of India’s civilisational heritage, extending beyond ceremonial functions into intellectual stewardship.
- The initiative reflects the state’s commitment to preserving non-Western knowledge systems within formal national institutions.
- It supports evidence-based policymaking by reconnecting governance with India’s historical administrative and ethical traditions.
Challenges and Gaps
- Limited public awareness and scholarly outreach may constrain optimal utilisation of the repository’s academic potential.
- Sustained funding and expert manpower are required for ongoing conservation, translation, and interpretative research.
- Ensuring non-ideological, academically rigorous curation remains essential to maintain institutional credibility.
Way Forward
- Expand collaborative research programmes with universities, IITs, and global institutions to maximise scholarly engagement with Granth Kutir’s collections.
- Promote systematic translation projects to make classical texts accessible to non-specialist and international audiences.
- Integrate Granth Kutir’s digitised resources with national digital knowledge portals for wider public and academic reach.
Conclusion
- Granth Kutir represents a conscious effort to institutionalise India’s civilisational memory within the constitutional heart of the Republic.
- By preserving and digitising classical texts, it strengthens cultural continuity, academic inquiry, and national identity in a knowledge-driven global order.
Census 2027 and the Foundational Houselisting Phase: Expanding India’s Socio-Digital Data Architecture
Background and Why is it in News?
- The Union Government has initiated preparations for Census 2027, with an expanded Foundational Houselisting Phase seeking detailed data on internet usage, digital assets, housing conditions, and sanitation.
- This phase marks a strategic shift from purely demographic enumeration towards data-driven governance, enabling evidence-based policymaking in welfare delivery, digital inclusion, and infrastructure planning.
- The exercise follows the delayed Census 2021, positioning Census 2027 as India’s first post-pandemic, digitally-enabled census capturing socio-economic transformations over the last decade.
Relevance
- GS 1 (Society): Provides foundational data on housing, amenities, inequality, urbanisation, and digital divide shaping India’s social structure.
- GS 2 (Polity & Governance): Crucial for delimitation, federal balance, welfare targeting, fiscal devolution, and evidence-based policymaking.
What is the Houselisting Phase of the Census?
- The houselisting phase precedes population enumeration and focuses on collecting household-level socio-economic information rather than individual demographic characteristics.
- It gathers data on housing quality, amenities, assets, sanitation, water access, cooking fuel, and now digital connectivity, forming the backbone of census-based policy design.
- Unlike population enumeration, houselisting maps living conditions and material deprivation across households, supporting targeted welfare and developmental interventions.
Why the Houselisting Phase Matters in Census 2027
- The houselisting phase establishes the sampling frame for population enumeration, ensuring accurate household coverage, geographic mapping, and avoidance of duplication or omission.
- It provides granular inputs for measuring multidimensional poverty, infrastructure gaps, and regional disparities beyond income-based indicators.
- By integrating digital access indicators, it reflects India’s transition into a digitally mediated economy and society.
Key Changes and New Data Dimensions in Census 2027
Shift from Paper-Based to Digital Enumeration
- Census 2027 will rely predominantly on mobile applications and digital dashboards, replacing paper schedules used in earlier censuses, thereby improving data accuracy and real-time monitoring.
- Enumerators will upload responses instantly, enabling supervisors to detect inconsistencies, coverage gaps, and enumeration delays through centralised digital monitoring systems.
Inclusion of Internet and Digital Access Indicators
- For the first time, the census will collect household-level data on internet availability, digital device ownership, and digital service usage, recognising connectivity as a development indicator.
- This data will help assess the digital divide across rural–urban, gendered, and regional lines, informing digital inclusion strategies and infrastructure expansion.
Expanded Coverage of Housing and Amenities
Housing Quality and Ownership
- Questions will capture housing type, ownership status, materials used, number of rooms, and vulnerability to congestion, informing urban planning and housing policy.
- Housing data supports flagship schemes like PM Awas Yojana and enables monitoring of housing adequacy across socio-economic categories.
Water, Sanitation and Energy Access
- Detailed information will be collected on drinking water sources, toilet facilities, wastewater disposal, and cooking fuel types used by households.
- This data directly informs public health planning, sanitation drives, and clean energy transitions under programmes such as Swachh Bharat and Ujjwala.
Asset Ownership and Economic Indicators
- The houselisting phase will record ownership of assets such as vehicles, consumer durables, agricultural equipment, and communication devices.
- Asset data acts as a proxy for household economic status, consumption capacity, and vulnerability, supporting targeting under welfare schemes.
- New questions on digital assets reflect evolving consumption patterns and technology-driven livelihoods.
Administrative and Governance Significance
- Census 2027 data will guide delimitation, fiscal transfers, welfare targeting, and infrastructure investment, making its accuracy politically and administratively critical.
- Ministries and State governments rely on census data for evidence-based decision-making, programme design, and performance evaluation.
- Delays or inaccuracies could distort representation, resource allocation, and social justice outcomes.
Data, Privacy, and Ethical Considerations
- Expanded data collection raises concerns regarding data privacy, informed consent, and cybersecurity, particularly with sensitive digital and asset-related information.
- Robust data protection protocols, anonymisation safeguards, and limited data access frameworks are essential to maintain public trust in census operations.
- Enumerator training and digital literacy are critical to prevent misuse, data leaks, or exclusion errors.
Challenges in Implementation
- Digital enumeration may face constraints in remote, tribal, and low-connectivity regions, risking undercounting or data quality issues.
- Enumerator capacity, language diversity, and respondent apprehension towards digital data sharing could affect response accuracy.
- Coordination between Centre, States, and local administrations remains crucial for timely and credible execution.
Way Forward
- Strengthen enumerator training in digital tools, ethical data handling, and community engagement to ensure inclusive and accurate enumeration.
- Ensure offline data collection options in low-connectivity areas to prevent digital exclusion.
- Integrate census data with national digital platforms cautiously, balancing governance utility with privacy protection.
Conclusion
- The expanded houselisting phase of Census 2027 signals India’s transition towards data-intensive governance, recognising housing, amenities, and digital access as core development indicators.
- If implemented transparently and inclusively, it can significantly enhance policy precision, social justice, and developmental accountability in the coming decade.
Census in India
- India has conducted 16 national population censuses so far, beginning in 1872, with the first synchronous Census held in 1881 under British administration.
- After Independence, India has conducted 7 decennial censuses from 1951 to 2011, with Census 2021 postponed, making 2011 the latest completed Census.
- The Census is conducted once every 10 years under the Census Act, 1948, which empowers the government to collect demographic and socio-economic data compulsorily.
- Each Census consists of two phases: the Houselisting and Housing Census followed by Population Enumeration, usually conducted in consecutive years.
- Census 2011 covered a population of 1.21 billion people, enumerating over 246 million households, making it one of the largest administrative exercises globally.
- Census operations typically involve 2.5–3 million enumerators and supervisors, mostly government employees, deployed across urban, rural, and remote regions.
- Census data determines the allocation of 543 Lok Sabha seats, 4,000+ State Assembly constituencies, and the reservation of seats for SCs and STs.
- Census figures guide fiscal transfers worth several lakh crore rupees, influencing Finance Commission devolution, centrally sponsored schemes, and State-level welfare planning.
- The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs, overseeing nationwide coordination with States and Union Territories.
- Census data is legally protected, with individual-level information kept confidential for at least 75 years, ensuring statistical use without personal identification.
India’s Global Hunt for Fugitives: Extradition, Enforcement and Diplomatic Constraints
Background and Why is it in News?
- Government data for 2024–25 reveals that 71 fugitives wanted by Indian agencies were located abroad, marking the highest figure in the last twelve years.
- The information, tabled in Parliament, highlights India’s intensified efforts to trace economic offenders, terror-linked accused, and organised crime fugitives overseas.
- The trend reflects growing use of Interpol mechanisms, bilateral extradition treaties, and diplomatic engagement to pursue absconders beyond India’s jurisdiction.
Relevance
- GS 1 (Society): Reflects societal impact of economic offences and erosion of public trust due to prolonged impunity of high-profile offenders.
- GS 2 (International Relations): Highlights limits of extradition treaties, mutual legal assistance, sovereignty constraints, and diplomatic negotiations.
- GS 3 (Internal Security): Directly linked to money laundering, economic crimes, terrorism financing, and transnational organised crime.
Key Data and Statistical Overview
Scale of the Problem
- Since 2013, Indian agencies have traced 203 fugitives abroad, with 71 located in 2024–25 alone, indicating both improved tracking capacity and rising transnational crime mobility.
- Of these, 27 fugitives have been successfully extradited or deported back to India, underscoring significant procedural and legal bottlenecks in securing physical custody.
Extradition Requests and Outcomes
- India sent 137 extradition requests to foreign countries during 2024–25, of which 134 requests were accepted, while 125 cases remain pending with foreign authorities.
- In the previous five years, India issued 535 Letters Rogatory, with 42 requests still pending, highlighting the slow and uncertain nature of judicial cooperation.
Institutional Mechanisms for Tracking Fugitives
Role of the Central Bureau of Investigation
- The CBI’s Global Operations Centre coordinates international efforts by liaising with foreign law enforcement agencies and issuing Interpol Red Notices against wanted criminals.
- The Centre operates in coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs, reflecting inter-ministerial cooperation in transnational crime control.
Use of Interpol Channels
- Interpol notices enable geo-location, provisional arrest, and information sharing but do not guarantee extradition, as final decisions rest with domestic courts of host countries.
- Legal standards of evidence, human rights concerns, and asylum claims often delay or block extradition despite confirmed location of fugitives.
Legal and Diplomatic Dimensions
Extradition Treaties and Arrangements
- India has signed extradition treaties with 48 countries and extradition arrangements with 12 additional nations, expanding its formal legal framework for fugitive recovery.
- However, absence of treaties with key safe-haven jurisdictions limits India’s ability to compel surrender of accused persons.
International Legal Constraints
- Many countries refuse extradition citing concerns over prison conditions, death penalty provisions, or political offence exceptions under their domestic laws.
- Extradition proceedings often become prolonged judicial battles, allowing fugitives to exploit procedural safeguards and delay tactics.
Types of Crimes Involved
- A significant share of fugitives are accused of economic offences, banking frauds, money laundering, and organised financial crimes, exploiting global financial networks.
- Others include individuals involved in terrorism, drug trafficking, and organised crime, posing both economic and national security risks to India.
Governance and National Security Implications
- Presence of absconders abroad undermines the credibility of India’s criminal justice system and weakens deterrence against high-value financial and organised crimes.
- Prolonged delays in extradition erode public confidence and complicate recovery of proceeds of crime stashed in foreign jurisdictions.
Challenges in Fugitive Recovery
- Extradition is constrained by sovereignty concerns, differing legal systems, human rights litigation, and diplomatic sensitivities with host countries.
- Limited investigative capacity to meet foreign evidentiary standards and delays in documentation further weaken India’s extradition success rate.
Way Forward
Legal and Institutional Strengthening
- India must upgrade investigative quality, documentation, and prosecution standards to withstand scrutiny in foreign courts and reduce rejection or delay of extradition cases.
- Dedicated fugitive-tracking cells and specialised legal teams can improve coordination between investigative and diplomatic arms.
Diplomatic and Multilateral Engagement
- Expanding extradition treaties with strategic jurisdictions and strengthening mutual legal assistance frameworks should be a diplomatic priority.
- Leveraging multilateral platforms and financial intelligence sharing can help restrict fugitives’ mobility and access to global banking systems.
Conclusion
- The record number of fugitives located abroad reflects improved tracking but also highlights the structural limitations of extradition-based justice in a globalised world.
- Sustainable success requires combining legal reform, diplomatic leverage, and international cooperation to ensure that fleeing India no longer guarantees impunity.
CBI and INTERPOL Notices:
- Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is India’s premier central investigative agency, established in 1963, functioning under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.
- The CBI investigates corruption, economic offences, organised crime, terrorism, and transnational crimes, and acts as India’s National Central Bureau (NCB) for INTERPOL.
- INTERPOL is an international police cooperation body with 195 member countries, facilitating information sharing and coordination, but it does not possess arrest or enforcement powers.
- Red Notice is the most well-known INTERPOL notice, issued to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person for extradition or similar legal action.
- Blue Notice is issued to collect additional information about a person’s identity, location, or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.
- Green Notice serves as a warning about persons who have committed criminal acts and are likely to repeat offences in other countries.
- Yellow Notice is used to locate missing persons, especially minors, or to identify individuals unable to identify themselves.
- Black Notice seeks information on unidentified bodies, helping determine identity through international cooperation.
- Orange Notice warns of serious and imminent threats posed by objects, events, or processes, such as explosives, weapons, or hazardous materials.
- INTERPOL notices are not international arrest warrants; action on a notice depends on domestic laws of member countries, and extradition requires separate judicial and diplomatic processes.
India’s ACC Battery PLI Scheme: Key Takeaways
Background and Why in News ?
- A 2026 IEEFA–JMK Research report shows India’s ACC Battery PLI scheme achieved only 2.8% of its targeted capacity after four years, signalling serious policy and execution gaps.
Scheme Objectives and Targets
- Launched in October 2021 with an outlay of ₹18,100 crore, the scheme aimed to establish 50 GWh domestic battery cell capacity by 2025.
- The programme targeted 1.03 million jobs, reduced import dependence, and creation of a domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem supporting EVs and grid-scale storage.
Relevance
- GS 1 (Society): Impacts employment generation, skill development, and workforce transition in green manufacturing sectors.
- GS 2 (Governance): Highlights design and implementation challenges in PLI schemes and industrial policy execution.
- GS 3 (Economy & Environment): Central to electric mobility, energy security, manufacturing competitiveness, and climate transition goals.
Actual Performance Outcomes
- As of October 2025, only 1.4 GWh capacity has been commissioned within timelines, representing 2.8% of the original 50 GWh target.
- Ola Electric is the only firm to have commissioned capacity on time, highlighting weak execution by other selected beneficiaries.
Strategic Implications
- India remains nearly 100% dependent on imported battery cells, undermining energy security and cost competitiveness of electric mobility.
- Weak domestic battery manufacturing threatens India’s EV adoption targets, renewable storage expansion, and broader clean energy transition goals.
Way Forward
- Introduce dedicated incentives for critical minerals sourcing, refining, cell components, equipment manufacturing, and recycling to strengthen the full battery value chain.
- Relax rigid timelines and DVA norms, attract established global battery manufacturers, and build robust testing, certification, and skilled workforce infrastructure.
Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACC):
- Advanced Chemistry Cells are rechargeable electrochemical energy storage units that convert chemical energy into electrical energy, forming the core of electric vehicles, renewable storage, and portable electronics.
- ACCs primarily include lithium-ion, lithium iron phosphate (LFP), nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC), sodium-ion, and emerging solid-state batteries, distinguished by energy density, safety, and cost profiles.
- A typical ACC consists of four critical components: cathode, anode, electrolyte, and separator, with performance depending on material chemistry and manufacturing precision.
- ACC manufacturing is capital-intensive and technology-intensive, requiring giga-scale factories, clean-room conditions, precision coating, cell formation, and advanced quality control systems.
- Battery cells are different from battery packs; cells are assembled into modules and packs along with battery management systems, making cell manufacturing the most value-critical stage.
- ACCs are central to electric mobility, determining vehicle range, charging time, safety, and overall cost, with batteries accounting for nearly 30–40% of EV cost.
- Beyond EVs, ACCs are crucial for grid-scale energy storage, enabling renewable energy integration by balancing intermittency from solar and wind power sources.
- Global ACC supply chains are highly concentrated, with China dominating cell manufacturing, refining of lithium, cobalt, and graphite, and battery equipment production.
- Key raw materials for ACCs include lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, and copper, making mineral security and recycling strategically important.
- Countries promote ACC manufacturing to achieve energy security, decarbonisation goals, industrial competitiveness, and strategic autonomy in the clean energy transition.
