“It’s all about survival,” says Majida Begum, her face wreathed in sweat as she sifts through waste in Delhi’s Seemapuri area, echoing as it were the everyday struggles of millions of women in India facing the brunt of the twin crises of heat and humidity.

As climate change tightens its grip over the globe, a study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization shows that female-headed households in rural areas on average lose 8 per cent more of their income due to heat stress compared to male-headed households.