Professor Sulochana Gadgil was well known in multiple ways. She was one of the early scientists working on atmospheric science in India. Her specialisation was in computational modelling, and her research talked about how the Indian monsoons were connected to the global atmospheric systems. With her work, she contributed significantly to the evolution of environmental discussions in India.

Sulochana Gadgil died in July 2025. I was researching to write her obituary, and came across an incisive paper she had written along with her son Siddhartha Gadgil in 2006 for the Economic and Political Weekly. In the paper, they investigated the impact of annual rainfall on the annual agricultural production, and in turn agriculture’s contribution to the national GDP over a period of 50 years.

They found that in the years of drought, the agricultural production had declined. This, in turn, had a negative impact on the GDP. This was as expected. The natural corollary to this would be that in the years of excess rainfall there should have been a higher agricultural production, and that in turn would mean a positive impact on the GDP. However, this was not so.

The mother-son duo investigated further, and found that in most of the years with excess rainfall there were floods, and this caused crop loss and thereby had a negative impact on the GDP rather than the expected positive one.

Neither the agricultural production figures nor the annual GDP figures for 2025 are available yet, but this year could be one of the kind explained by the Gadgils.

2025 was a year of good monsoon, but also of floods and crop loss. For the southwest monsoon — from June to end-September — there was a 7.9% increase from the 1971-2020 cumulative average. During the ongoing northeast monsoon, starting October 1, there has been excess rainfall in 55% of districts of the country and normal in 25%.

During this year’s southwest monsoon season, heavy and incessant rains in the western Himalayan catchments led to high-volume flows in Beas, Sutlej, Raavi and Ghaggar rivers. There was also controlled release of water from the Bhakra, Pong and Ranjit Sagar dam reservoirs. This affected large portions of Punjab’s 23 districts causing much damage to paddy and other crops.

It even flooded in Marathwada, the perennially dry region of Maharashtra. The southwest monsoon was 128% of the long-term average in the region. A region that normally thirsts for water, was inundated with heavy rainfall that came in short bursts of time, destroying standing crops and infrastructure. Like in the case of Punjab, there were large cattle deaths, adding to the misery of the farming community. In July, there were floods in many parts of northeast India, especially in Assam and Mizoram.

At Mongabay-India, in previous years we had reported in depth about the changing temperature profile within the larger Indian Ocean system, and even within that we had reported about how the Arabian Sea is getting warmer above the cyclogenesis temperature threshold and this is causing a string of extreme weather events during the southwest monsoon season. In 2025, we reported on a scientific study that looked at the water flow data in Ganga for over 1,300 years and came to the conclusion that Ganges riverine system is going through a period of unprecedented drought. Floods and droughts, and a slowly drying Ganga — the prognosis is not promising.

Heat stress impacts the marginalised more

There is something pernicious about heatwaves and heat stress that floods do not have. There is an immediacy about floods, which makes administrators take quick action. Floods create news and inaction can cause embarrassment to governments. On the other hand, a heatwave happens slowly, spreading its tentacles slowly but surely, even while India is among the worst hit countries. Those more vulnerable get hit harder.

How do we bring these layered heatwave stories into public discussions? Three stories from 2025 were standout in this department. During the summer of 2024, Simrin Sirur had followed the story of an ATM security guard in Delhi who had suffered a near-fatal heatstroke. The 54-year-old Devi Prasad Ahirwar had collapsed while on duty one day. Fortunately for him, the people around him responded fast, and he was admitted with very high fever in a life-threatening situation. Though Devi Prasad survived the heatstroke, the medical expenses broke his family down.

In 2025, Simrin travelled to Devi Prasad’s village in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh to meet him. He could not work anymore — the heatstroke had left an indelible impact on his brain. He could no longer speak clearly and felt dizzy every time he stood.

Simrin also discovered two shocking realities when working on these stories. One, death due to heatstroke could be as high as 64%. That means for every Devi Prasad who survived, there could have been two who succumbed. Two, she discovered a study that found that the marginalised castes were more vulnerable to heatstroke, because their lack of access to resources forces them to jobs that require to be out in the open.

The two other standout heat-related stories from 2025 were video stories. Aishwarya Tripathi travelled to Odisha and reported on how heat stress magnifies in people with spinal cord injuries. These individuals feel the impact of heat two to three times that of those without injuries. While the governmental health systems consider these individuals along with those with mobility issues, these specially-abled individuals get further health complications than normal individuals during heatwaves.

Aishwarya Mohanty and Divya Vilvaraj walked along with the nomadic pastoralist Raika community of Rajasthan. The lives of the Raikas revolve around their animals — camels and sheep. When the feed for the animals decline in summer, the Raikas move with them to locations where there is more fodder. Traditionally, they moved through farmlands, so that their animals could manure fields, and in return farmers gave them grains and vegetables. With construction and development having overtaken farmlands these nomads are forced to use the roads, thereby enhancing their heat stress as the years become hotter.

These three stories brought nuance into the heat stress discussions. After all, climate change sits on top of all the problems that the already marginalised experience, and disaggregated stories such as these could add a greater understanding on the impact of extreme weather events.

We also examined the meta picture across the country and realised that people with disabilities are always neglected in every disaster management plan developed. Our reporting highlighted the fact that administrative action on heat is always reactive and there is never any preparedness to deal with this stress that is appearing almost every year.

As the changing climate reduces food production and increases food prices, it forces many more to consume inadequate nutrition and thereby become more vulnerable to tuberculosis infections. Climate change also has a link to diabetes, a disorder that already affects a significant percentage of Indians. With increasing rains and heatwaves, diabetics find it difficult to stick to their diet and exercise regimes. They also are more vulnerable to heat stress and opportunistic infections that come with extreme weather events.

To work on dealing with heat stress, first there has to be an understanding on how the heat profile has changed in different locations. The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission mapped how the heat profile of the revenue blocks in the state had changed between 1981 and 2023. Their conclusion — 74% of the residents of Tamil Nadu are already exposed to uncomfortable levels of heat. Another study by researchers from the Madras School of Economics shows that the heat stress levels have increased across the country.

Chasing policy action

While chasing national policy stories in 2025, we realised that the length of the coastline of India officially increased by 47% — from the earlier estimation of 7,516 kilometres to 11,084 kilometres. The official explanation is that with modern means of measurement, all the folds and bays can be measured more accurately today than in the past, and thus the increase.

Since the time that Mongabay-India launched in January 2018, we have been following the manner in which the national government has been dismantling the laws and rules that protect the environment. We also followed the ever-shifting balance of power between the government and the judiciary. In May, the Supreme Court of India ordered a ban on post-facto environmental clearances for projects, which is the tendency of project promoters not taking an environmental clearance before they start work on a project and then arguing that abiding by environmental regulations later would mean loss of the money invested. The apex court described this practice as “illegal and harmful.”

With construction and other industry groups arguing for the exemption from environmental impact assessment when finances have already been invested, in November a larger bench of the Supreme Court rolled back its order on the ban on post-facto environmental clearances. In September, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change issued an executive order exempting projects for mining of critical and atomic minerals from public review. Opening the project details to the public and also hearing people’s views through a meeting is an important part of the environmental impact assessment process.

There were milestones and achievements too. India announced that it has achieved 50% of its installed power generation from non-fossil fuel sources. It has set the target of 50% for the year 2030 and had achieved it five years before the deadline. The country has also progressed well in its climate action planning and implementation at the state level, and can be an example for other countries for sub-national implementation.

Need more domestic finance

India played an increasingly important leadership role at the climate change conference of parties (COP30) held at Belém in Brazil. With the US withdrawing from the climate change negotiations and Europe distracted with the continuing Russia-Ukraine war, India stepped into the vacuum. Interestingly, India worked with China in the diplomatic hustle.

However, COP30 itself was a disappointment, closing without a clear roadmap either on fossil fuel phase out or finances for dealing with climate change. As lobbyists obstructed a constructive conclusion, India argued for equity and finance at the outset of the COP and during the final phase.

The Belém COP again re-emphasised the message that had come from the previous Baku COP — India would need to raise its own financial resources for dealing with climate change, both for mitigation and adaptation. This is even more critical with extreme weather events coming in quick succession in the recent years and with the trend set to worsen into future.

There are already talks about establishing a country platform to attract investments, and find other innovative methods to raise both public and private finance. There are also ideas being suggested by experts outside the governmental system. While efforts have already started to get the climate finance terminology standardised to avoid ambiguity, the Reserve Bank of India has suggested pooling of bankable projects to attract investments.

Moving forward or back?

From the time Sulochana Gadgil started her research — the late 1960s and early 1970s — the scientific understanding of the atmospheric and other natural systems has dramatically improved. This has also made clearer the linkages between land and oceans that can both worsen climate change and its impacts.

However, this clarity does not necessarily translate into policy action. As the year turns, two governmental actions will leave their shadows deep into the coming years. One, is the decision to reduce the ecological importance of the Aravallis. Two, is the remodelling of the employment generation act that had served as a bulwark to reduce the impact of climate change on rural communities.

India is more vulnerable than any other country to climate change in the world due to its location and population. With every passing year it is becoming clear that India will need to design, fund and implement its own climate action. Thus, it is increasingly important to choose the right options.

Banner image: A woman carries water collected from a public tap during the summer on the outskirts of Jammu. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)

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Aditi Tandon Senior Production Editor

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AgricultureCities and TownsClimate ChangeEcologyEnvironmentExtreme Weather EventsFloodsPollutionWaterWildlifeIndia

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