With increasing concerns about climate change, the need to understand the nature and variability of monsoon climatic conditions and to evaluate possible future changes becomes increasingly important. This paper deals with the changes in frequency and magnitudes of extreme monsoon rainfall deficiency and excess in India from 1871 to 2005. Five regions across India comprising variable climates were selected for the study. Apart from changes in individual regions, changing tendencies in extreme monsoon rainfall deficit and excess were also determined for the Indian region as a whole. The trends and their significance were assessed using non-parametric Mann