When midnight approaches in New Delhi and a freezing fog settles over the Indian capital, thousands of homeless people spread torn mattresses and blankets on the pavements and lie on them to keep warm.
Those who can’t afford the blankets spend the night around a smoldering fire built with garbage and discarded cardboard boxes. Others hunker down in a government shelter system.
It’s a scene that repeats itself every year when India’s capital experiences a harsh bout of winter cold, blamed for killing scores of homeless people and leaving tens of thousands of others shivering on the streets.
On Sunday, New Delhi recorded a low of 5.5 degrees Celsius (41.9 Fahrenheit), with India’s weather forecasting agency warning of a severe cold wave from Monday.
New Delhi’s 20 million inhabitants are conditioned to various weather extremes, from blistering heat waves in the summer to thick, grey smog that envelopes the capital before the onset of the winter when a brutal cold…
