India experienced its hottest year on record in 2024, officials said, with large areas of the world’s most populous nation suffering through extended heatwaves induced by climate change.
Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department, said the country's annual mean temperature was more than 0.5ºC above the long-term average last year.
“The annual mean temperature for the country during 2024 crossed 0.65ºC above the long-term average. It was the warmest year on record since 1901,” Dr Mohapatra told a press conference.
The previous highest mean temperature was recorded in 2016, when it rose 0.54ºC above the long-term average. “It is showing an increasing trend because of the impact of climate change,” he added.
The annual mean temperature is arrived at by collecting the maximum and minimum daily temperatures recorded at observatories across India "and then the average cumulative maximum and minimum temperature is divided by 12", said Mahesh Palawat, vice president of Skymet Weather, a private forecaster.
The country of 1.4 billion people has been experiencing unusually hot weather in recent years, with several places reporting record temperatures and prolonged heatwaves – when temperatures cross the 40°C mark. The temperature in the capital, New Delhi, reached 52.9ºC in May, the highest recorded in the country, and at least 37 Indian cities reported temperatures of more than 45ºC that month, according to the meteorological authority.
The heat caused nearly 400 deaths across the country and forced more than 40,000 people to seek medical treatment between March and July, the government told Parliament.
A survey by HeatWatch, an Indian non-profit group, put the toll higher, saying more than 700 people lost their lives because of heatstroke during those months. Birds fell from the sky and hospitals reported an influx of patients both day and night due to the heat. Doctors told The National of a patient who was admitted with a body temperature of 41ºC, before being put in a tub filled with ice and cold water to bring it down.
Weather experts attributed the record heat to the absence of periodic light rain owing to the lack of active western disturbance – a weather system that emanates from the Mediterranean and brings moisture-rich clouds to the subcontinent – as a result of climate change.
Experts have also blamed the rampant expansion of cities and towns and the shrinking of green cover and water bodies in cities including New Delhi, as hot winds become trapped in areas with a high number of multistorey buildings.
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Strait of Hormuz
Fujairah is a crucial hub for fuel storage and is just outside the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.
The strait is 33 km wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just three km wide in either direction. Almost a fifth of oil consumed across the world passes through the strait.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, a move that would risk inviting geopolitical and economic turmoil.
Last month, Iran issued a new warning that it would block the strait, if it was prevented from using the waterway following a US decision to end exemptions from sanctions for major Iranian oil importers.
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Company profile
Company name: Dharma
Date started: 2018
Founders: Charaf El Mansouri, Nisma Benani, Leah Howe
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: TravelTech
Funding stage: Pre-series A
Investors: Convivialite Ventures, BY Partners, Shorooq Partners, L& Ventures, Flat6Labs
Saturday's results
Brighton 1-1 Leicester City
Everton 1-0 Cardiff City
Manchester United 0-0 Crystal Palace
Watford 0-3 Liverpool
West Ham United 0-4 Manchester City
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
The five pillars of Islam
Sanchez's club career
2005-2006: Cobreloa
2006-2011 Udinese
2006-2007 Colo-Colo (on loan)
2007-2008 River Plate (on loan)
2011-2014 Barcelona
2014–Present Arsenal
Other acts on the Jazz Garden bill
Sharrie Williams
The American singer is hugely respected in blues circles due to her passionate vocals and songwriting. Born and raised in Michigan, Williams began recording and touring as a teenage gospel singer. Her career took off with the blues band The Wiseguys. Such was the acclaim of their live shows that they toured throughout Europe and in Africa. As a solo artist, Williams has also collaborated with the likes of the late Dizzy Gillespie, Van Morrison and Mavis Staples.
Lin Rountree
An accomplished smooth jazz artist who blends his chilled approach with R‘n’B. Trained at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, Rountree formed his own band in 2004. He has also recorded with the likes of Kem, Dwele and Conya Doss. He comes to Dubai on the back of his new single Pass The Groove, from his forthcoming 2018 album Stronger Still, which may follow his five previous solo albums in cracking the top 10 of the US jazz charts.
Anita Williams
Dubai-based singer Anita Williams will open the night with a set of covers and swing, jazz and blues standards that made her an in-demand singer across the emirate. The Irish singer has been performing in Dubai since 2008 at venues such as MusicHall and Voda Bar. Her Jazz Garden appearance is career highlight as she will use the event to perform the original song Big Blue Eyes, the single from her debut solo album, due for release soon.
