In the shadow of a rapidly warming planet, three distinct yet interconnected fronts in India’s climate resilience battle emerged—each underscoring that the fight for survival extends beyond human health to animals, communities, and governance itself. The discourse wove together the fates of livestock herds, rural women in the informal sector, and the citizens of Meghalaya into a single tapestry of adaptation, ingenuity, and urgency.

Dr. Ragavendra Bhatta, Deputy Director General (Animal Science) at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, painted a vivid portrait of the stakes in safeguarding livestock—lifelines for over 750 million of the world’s poorest people—from the gathering storms of climate change. Livestock, more resilient to climatic shocks than many crops, remain imperilled by rising temperatures, shifting disease patterns, and insidious threats like the bluetongue virus in Europe. Heat stress in poultry and dairy animals erodes productivity and health, making the development of biomarkers and adaptive management strategies essential. His clarion call was unequivocal: investment in robust animal health systems is not charity but necessity—central to food security, the One Health paradigm, and the progressive elimination of priority animal diseases, with two-month disease risk forecasts offering a critical window for action.

Megha Desai of the Self Employed Women’s Association, Gujarat, turned the lens to the sweltering fields and parched lanes where India’s unorganised rural women labour unseen. Through her Swachha Akash campaign, she illuminated how heatwaves sap strength, dehydration threatens life, and basic potable water becomes a rare commodity during weather extremes. For these women, climate change manifests not as an abstract curve on a graph but as sunburnt skin, foot ulcers, and fatigue that blurs the boundary between endurance and exhaustion. Her prescription was as practical as it was humane: bridge the chasm between government health systems and the informal sector’s familial networks, embed targeted health camps as a regular fixture, and dignify these women’s labour with climate-adaptive safeguards.

In the verdant hills of Meghalaya, Sampath Kumar, Principal Secretary for Health & Family Welfare, Government of Meghalaya, offered a sobering forecast: even under mild scenarios, long-term temperatures could rise by 2.2°C, with extreme projections touching 3.5°C. The impacts—deforestation, erratic precipitation, altered land use—are already shaping the health realities of its people. His cost-of-inaction calculus was stark, prompting a two-pronged intervention strategy. On the supply side: Payment for Ecosystem Services, Energy Access Programmes, a forward-looking Water Policy, rat trap bond masonry for resilient infrastructure, solar-powered health facilities, and upgraded early childhood development centres. On the demand side: empowered village facilitators and natural resource management committees, all overseen by an apex body chaired by the Chief Minister to ensure coordination and political will.

What emerged from their collective narratives was a truth too often obscured: climate adaptation is not a monolith. It is a symphony of sectoral harmonies—where veterinary science meets gender equity, and state policy aligns with village stewardship. Only through such polyphonic engagement can India hope to weather the tempests ahead, ensuring that neither herds, nor women, nor highland communities are left to face the gathering storms alone.