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Indian city uses smartwatches to track impact of deadly heat

Cities like Ahmedabad have always had hot summers, but now they're nearing the threshold beyond which exposure for more than a few hours can

“Sometimes it gets so hot, I can’t think straight,” said Chunara, sporting a black smartwatch that contrasts sharply with her colourful bangles and sari.

Chunara is one of 204 residents of Vanzara Vas given the smartwatches for a year-long study to find out how heat affects vulnerable communities around the world. The watches measure heart rate and pulse and track sleep, and participants get weekly blood pressure checks.

Data collector Komal Parmar, right, talks with Sapnaben Chunara to get heat related information in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Researchers also painted some roofs with reflective paint to reduce indoor heat and will compare them to homes without so-called cool roofs using indoor heat sensors. Along with the smartwatches, this will help them understand how much cool roofs can help poor households deal with India’s scorching summers.

A man applies reflective paint on the roof of a house to reduce indoor heat in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Chunara, whose home didn't get a cool roof, said she's happy to participate by wearing the watch, confident the results will help her family, too.

"They might paint my roof as well, and they might be able to do something that helps all of us in this area cope with the heat better,” Chunara said.

An increasingly hot planet, due largely to burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, means already hot regions are getting even worse.

A 2023 study estimated that if the global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2 degrees Celsius, there would be a 370 per cent rise in heat-related deaths around the world, and most would happen in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.

“This is a big concern, and it also shows the heat divide” between the poor and wealthy, said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate expert with the Natural Resources Defence Council and part of the group conducting the research in Ahmedabad.

In the summer of 2010, the city witnessed nearly 1,300 excess deaths — how many more people died than would be expected — which experts found were most likely due to high temperatures.

Following the 2010 tragedy, city officials, with help from public health and heat experts, devised an action plan to warn citizens when the heat is at dangerous levels and prepare city hospitals to respond rapidly to heat-related illness. The plan has been replicated across India and other parts of South Asia.

I studied design in Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design. Reading this helps explain the design of our campus, architecture that emphasized air circulation and natural cooling. Mind you, I was there umpteen million years ago in 1989-1990.

something something..

crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis

International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

17 May

i hate that concerns about urban gardening/foraging safety is often met with "What are you, a cop?" scorn. I believe it's a suspicion of anything that hinders the punk/anti-system urgency to jump in immediately and do whatever feels right.

Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.

I know anti-intellectualism is viewed as activist these days, but like, surely you don't want to literally eat lead, right?

But first they must catch you 🏳️‍⚧️ Prints

A group of trans women protesting outside Scottish parliament to condemn the UK Supreme Court’s bioessentialist ruling on sex, and the response of the Scottish government. All are wearing black pants, black tape across their mouths or a black KN95, and their right arms are painted red as "a mark of solidarity with anti-fascist feminists across Europe." | May 17th, 2025

One of the demonstrators, Sugar, described the protests as "a public act of grief, resistance and solidarity to highlight the hypocrisy of the ruling. If the Supreme Court can see these woman legally as men, then they’ll have zero issue with them going tops off.”

“This ruling, and the subsequent EHRC guidance aims to segregate trans people from safe spaces that they have for used for decades without issue. We are demanding that the Scottish government stand up for its trans citizens by fighting this ruling and appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.”

GET. AI. OUT. OF. FANDOM. Stop making headcanons with it, stop making fanfic with it, stop making fanart with it. If I see one more "asking chatgpt *blank* about *character/characters in a fandom* I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. Use your own fucking brain, stop asking AI to do everything. You could even ask other real people what they think. Just. Stop. Using. AI. In. Creative. Spaces.