A man covers his head amid hot, dry weather in Pahari town of Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri district. The state saw heatwave conditions in the second week of May, with Ratlam district recording the highest maximum temperature of 46°C on May 9. The same day, temperatures in Madhya Pradesh’s four major cities – Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior-were 1-2°C above normal. The India Meteorological Department says the heatwave was due to a trough running across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and northwest Madhya Pradesh.
There were reports from both, Punjab and Haryana, of national highways, state highways, link roads and railway tracks being completely blocked, bringing road and rail traffic to a halt. In other states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the shutdown evoked a mixed response. Here, two protestors sit near barricades put up by the administration at Ghazipur.
The reptile is herbivorous, solitary and burrow-dwelling, found in the arid and semi-arid regions of north-western India. In India, it can be found in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.