India, April 23 -- It's 5 pm in Delhi, and stepping outside feels like walking into a furnace. This April, temperatures have already crossed 40degC, and every morning the newspaper reads more like a weather warning than a daily update. Across the country, cities are issuing yellow alerts, hospitals are preparing for heat-related illnesses, and peak power demand is surging.

This is no longer an unusual occurrence. The discomfort many of us feel is not a matter of personal inconvenience-it is a warning sign of a much deeper and more structural problem. Heatwaves have become an annual certainty, and with them come both humanitarian and economic risks that are increasing year by year.

Between 2001 and 2020, India lost over 250 billion hours...