How an innovative portable shelter could help India's outdoor workers beat the heat

BENGALURU, India (AP) — An innovative portable shelter recently exhibited in one of India's largest cities shows how smart, cheap ways to help workers escape the heat are gaining traction in a country that's particularly vulnerable to climate change-driven extreme temperatures.

The Neralu shelter, winner of a design contest in the southern city of Bengaluru, was displayed at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in late May alongside a theatrical performance about heat impacts on outdoor workers and exhibits on heat-related studies. Organizer Kanishk Kabiraj said the aim of the exhibition is to raise awareness about how extreme heat is endangering the health and livelihoods of the country’s outdoor workforce. It comes amid a shift in India toward greater awareness of climate-related issues in recent years.

“We think that it’s important to not only talk conceptually but to try and create models and proof of concept,” Kabiraj said.

Neralu, which means shade in Kannada, the most common local language spoken in Bengaluru, consists of a lightweight frame that supports a shade, bench and angled slats operated by manual pulleys to fan people seated within. The shelter costs about $175 and is made of metal, fiber-reinforced plastic and plywood. Weighing roughly 15 kilograms (33 pounds), the shelter for up to four people can be installed on outdoor walls and easily disassembled and transported on the small motor vehicles known as tuk-tuks.

“This kind of shelter will be helpful for people like us who work outdoors,” said Madhe Gowda, a 62-year-old fruit seller who came to the exhibit. “I sell fruits from my pushcart all day. When it’s really hot, my fruits begin to rot and it becomes difficult for me to move around much."

Neralu beat 19 other entries in a contest for designing heat shelters for outdoor workers organized in Bengaluru last year. Ankritya Diggavi, one of the architects behind the design, said it was inspired by speaking to and observing outdoor workers.

“They have made their own makeshift measures using material like beach umbrellas and tarpaulin sheets,” Diggavi said.

The designers said the Neralu shelter can be made of recycled and repurposed material from the auto industry or other businesses. They said the design has a lot of room to be modified according to local needs and available materials.

“We wanted something simple, affordable, and quick to assemble,” said Sagar Kandal, another one of the designers.

They said they have received interest from both public and private organizations that want to purchase and install these shelters in the city. The Indian Meteorological Department has found the number of extreme heat days increasing in the city, which planning experts say is likely due to climate change and rapid urbanization.

And with a rising number of Indian states designing heat and climate change adaptation plans, they said the shelter can work in any heat-stressed city that needs low-cost solutions.

Tamanna Dalal, a researcher on heat policy at the New Delhi-based think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative, said the way cities are built in India is resulting in urban heat islands, parts of cities with higher average temperatures than the surrounding areas. Shelters that take local climate factors into account and can be replicated easily will become “supremely important” as heat worsens in the coming years, Dalal added.

India is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate impacts, with floods, heat waves and cyclones having resulted in 80,000 deaths and economic losses nearing $180 billion from 1993 to 2022. According to the International Labor Organization, India stands to lose up to 34 million jobs due to increasing heat by 2030.

P. Kumaravel, a 42-year-old construction worker who was at the event held over two days at the end of May, welcomed the idea of the shelter, but said good public transport and reliable health insurance are what workers like him need the most.

“This year’s heat was really bad. I had rashes and pimples. We rest under a tree when we can, but we’re paid to work, not to rest,” he said. “A shelter is helpful, but it’s not enough,” he said.

Follow Sibi Arasu on X at @sibi123

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Daily wage workers, who mostly work outdoors, leave after exploring Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Daily wage workers, who mostly work outdoors, explore Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Daily wage workers, who mostly work outdoors, explore Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Visitors read interpretive panels highlighting the impact of heat at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

A group of theater artists perform to highlight the benefits of Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

A woman walks past interpretive panels highlighting the impact of heat at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Workers install Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, ahead of the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Ankritya Diggavi, left, and Sagar Kandal, architects behind the design of Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, pose in front of their installation at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Workers assemble Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, before installing it at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Ankritya Diggavi, one of the architects behind the design of Neralu, an innovative portable heat shelter, explains its features to visitors at the Sweat and Concrete 2025 event in Bengaluru, India, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)