New Delhi, May 1 -- India faces 15 to 40 additional unusually hot days each year over the next two decades, with warm nights rising by 20 to 40 days annually across several regions, a new AI-powered climate intelligence platform has projected. CRAVIS, developed by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), draws on more than 40 years of public datasets from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology Pune, and other institutions to model climate trends through 2070. It defines "unusually hot days" as those where daily mean temperatures exceed the district-specific 90th percentile threshold based on the 1981-2010 climatic baseline. The projections come as India braces for a below-normal monsoon driven by an impending El Niño. HT reported on April 13 that the IMD had issued its first forecast of below-normal rain in 11 years - deepening concerns over growth, farm output and inflation, already under strain from the war in West Asia. Over 57% of India's districts and nearly 75% of its population already face high to very high heat risk, CEEW has said. The platform enables district-level analysis across 279 indicators under multiple emission and warming scenarios, overlaying climate data with sectoral information on power infrastructure, agriculture, land use and public health. Among its findings: more than half of India's 281 data centres are already exposed to temperatures above 35degC for over 90 days a year; by 2040, nearly 90% could face similar exposure. Heavy rainfall events are also expected to rise, with many districts facing 10 to 30 additional heavy rainfall days annually. Central and southern states - Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu - are likely to see the sharpest increases. "Rising temperatures, increasing hot days, and more frequent heavy rainfall events are clear signals that climate change is a present reality for India, shaping our economy and daily lives," Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said at the launch. India's monsoon future is marked by contradictions, CEEW researchers said. Southwest monsoon rainfall could rise 6-8% by 2050, yet the Indo-Gangetic Plains and northeast India have already seen declines of 0.5-1.5 mm per day per decade - meaning more floods in some regions and deepening drought in others....