Quietly and almost invisibly, a single decision taken in New Delhi today has perhaps shifted the tectonic plates of global manufacturing. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this week cleared India’s first dedicated Production-Linked Incentive scheme worth Rs 7,280 crore for sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM)—the super-strong, heat-resistant neodymium-iron-boron and samarium-cobalt magnets that power the modern world.

This is not another incremental industrial policy. It is a declaration of strategic independence in one of the most tightly controlled technology chokepoints on earth. Think about everything that cannot exist without these magnets: the whisper-quiet traction motor in a Tesla or Tata Nexon EV, the 15-megawatt offshore wind turbines rising in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mannar, the actuators in an F-35 fighter jet or BrahMos missile, the vibration motor in every smartphone, the speakers in noise-cancelling headphones, even the humble hard-disk drive and MRI machine. None of these work at today’s performance levels without rare-earth permanent magnets. They are the highest-energy-density magnets humanity has ever produced-10X stronger than the ferrite magnets of the old world.

In 2024 alone, the global electric-vehicle industry consumed over 37 kilotons of NdFeB magnets, a 32 per cent leap from the previous year. Analysts now project the global REPM market will cross $22 billion well before 2030, expanding at nearly 8 per cent compounded annually. Every new offshore wind farm, every defence modernisation programme, every data-centre cooling pump adds to the hunger. And for decades, almost the entire planet has been forced to buy these magnets from one country. China mines roughly 60 per cent of the world’s rare earths, refines over 90 per cent, and manufactures 94 per cent........

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