Arid regions of Northwest India and the Thar Desert exhibit significant greening and a declining trend in surface albedo due to vegetation expansion over the past few decades. Simultaneous weakening of dust sources in this region has led to a decreasing trend in columnar aerosol loading (-0.018 f 0.012 per decade), in contrast to the increasing trend in aerosols observed over South Asia. Aerosol interactions with solar radiation through scattering and absorption reduce the amount of solar radiation at the surface; trends in surface albedo and cloud cover (0.029 f 0.006 per decade) influence the aerosol-radiation interactions (aerosol radiative effects) over the region. To delineate the effects of contrasting trends in surface albedo and cloud properties on aerosol-radiation interactions, radiative transfer computations are carried out using ground-based and satellite observations. The individual contributions of the declining trend in surface albedo and the increasing trend in cloud cover to aerosol direct radiative effects at the top of the atmosphere are-0.41 Wm-2 per decade and 0.25 Wm-2 per decade, respectively. The aerosol-induced radiative impact due to trends in aerosols, clouds and surface albedo together results in 0.08 Wm-2 per decade. However, a decreasing trend in diabatic heating of the atmosphere due to changes in aerosol composition is further amplified by trends in clouds and surface albedo. The contribution of trends in aerosols and clouds has contrasting effects on photosynthetically active radiation, which offset nearly-5.2% of the significantly increasing trend in net primary productivity observed over north-western India.