Today's Brief 11/10/2025

1 .Solar dimming: A significant study published in Nature's Scientific Reports indicates that India is experiencing a steady, long-term "solar dimming" phenomenon,

it is a decline in the amount of sunlight reaching the ground, with serious implications for the country's energy and climate goals.

This reduction in sunshine hours over the past three decades is primarily attributed to rising aerosol pollution from industrial emissions, biomass burning, and vehicular exhaust, coupled with increased, persistent cloud cover.

Specifically, aerosols act as condensation nuclei, leading to the formation of more numerous, smaller, and longer-lived cloud droplets that stay in the atmosphere longer, keeping skies overcast for extended periods.

Regions like the north Indian plains have recorded the steepest decline, losing an average of over 13 hours of annual sunshine, while the west coast and Deccan Plateau also show significant losses.

This decrease in direct sunlight threatens to lower the efficiency and power output of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, potentially jeopardizing India's ambitious targets for solar energy capacity expansion and requiring a critical re-evaluation of its long-term renewable energy forecasts and planning.

2 Mongolia : President of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa will be on a four day state visit to India from Monday at the invitation of President Droupadi Murmu. This is his first visit to India as Head of State

Mongolia, a vast and storied nation in East Asia, is a land of extreme geography and a rich, nomadic heritage. It is famously known as the "Land of the Blue Sky" due to its over 250 days of sunshine annually,

and it holds the distinction of being the world's most sparsely populated sovereign country, with a population of just 3.3 million people spread across an area comparable to Western Europe.

Geographically, it is a landlocked nation, sandwiched between the two giants of Russia to the north and China to the south.

Its terrain is dominated by a central semi-arid steppe, which was the heartland of the Mongol Empire, flanked by the Gobi Desert in the south one of the world's largest and coldest deserts and the Altai Mountains in the west.

This rugged landscape has shaped a unique culture centered around nomadic pastoralism, with livestock, particularly horses, sheep, and the iconic Bactrian camel, outnumbering humans significantly.

Historically, Mongolia is most renowned as the birthplace of the Mongol Empire, founded by Genghis Khan in 1206, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history.

Following centuries of rule by the Qing Dynasty and a period under Soviet influence, Mongolia transitioned to a peaceful parliamentary democracy in 1990, making it a unique case of a post-communist transition in Asia.

Its capital, Ulaanbaatar, is the cultural and economic hub and holds the title of the world's coldest capital city.