Anna Mani: The Weather Woman of India

Anna Mani was an Indian physicist and meteorologist. People call her the Weather Woman of India.

Where did she come from?

• She was born on 23 August 1918 in Peerumedu, in the Western Ghats of Travancore.
• Her father was an engineer with the Travancore Public Works Department.
• Her mother was a teacher.
• She was the seventh of eight children.
• Her father taught her to accept a claim only after testing it herself.
• She earned an honours degree in physics and chemistry at Presidency College, Madras.

What is the memory hook?

Think “test it yourself”. Her father’s rule shaped her life as a scientist.

She researched in C. V. Raman’s lab at IISc. Her PhD was refused because she had no master’s degree.

What did she research?

• She joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1940.
• She worked in the physics department headed by C. V. Raman.
• Her first paper came out in 1942.
• She studied the light given out by rubies and diamonds.
• She wrote five research papers.

Why did she not get the degree?

• She submitted a PhD dissertation to Madras University in 1945.
• The university said she had no MSc.
• So it did not grant her the PhD.

What is the memory hook?

Think “five papers, no PhD”. The rule stopped her, not her science.

She trained in weather instruments in Britain. She came home in 1948 and joined the weather service.

What did she do abroad?

• The Government of India gave her a scholarship.
• She went to England on a troop ship.
• She spent three years there.
• The British Meteorological Office trained her on weather instruments.
• She spent three months at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, learning about standards.

What did she do on her return?

• She returned to India in 1948.
• She joined the Instrument Division of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) at Pune.

What is the memory hook?

Think “England, then Pune 1948”. The training led straight to the job.

She designed and standardised nearly one hundred weather instruments. Imports of surface instruments stopped within five years.

What did she build?

• Her first job was a recording rain gauge.
• Then came the hygrograph, thermograph, barograph and anemograph.
• She wrote specifications, drawings and manuals for each one.
• Imports of all surface instruments stopped in five years.

How did she study sunlight?

• The International Geophysical Year ran in 1957 and 1958.
• India started four radiation stations in 1957.
• She then designed Indian radiation instruments at Pune.
• The first was the pyrheliometer, then the pyranometer.
• By 1969 India had 24 radiation stations.
• The WMO recognised Pune as a Regional Radiation Centre for Asia.

What is the memory hook?

Think “100 instruments, 24 stations”. One number is for tools and one is for sunlight.

She built India’s ozone sonde. It is a balloon instrument that measures ozone high in the air.

How did the sonde work?

• K. R. Ramanathan urged her to develop an Indian ozone sonde.
• She began the project at Pune in 1962.
• A balloon carried it up.
• A small pump sucked air through a potassium iodide solution.
• The ozone changed the solution and made a weak electric signal.
• The first successful ozone sounding from Pune came in September 1964.

Why did it matter?

• The sonde did well in an international comparison in Germany in 1970.
• Indian ozone soundings were routine on Antarctic expeditions from 1982.
• They showed the ozone hole over Antarctica.

What is the memory hook?

Think “1962 start, 1964 first sounding”. Two years of failures came between them.

She became a Deputy Director General and retired in 1976. Then she turned to solar and wind energy.

What posts and projects followed?

• She moved to Delhi in 1969 as Deputy Director General for instruments.
• She retired from the IMD in 1976.
• She joined the Raman Research Institute as visiting professor for three years.
• Her books on solar radiation came out in 1980 and 1981.
• In 1984 she started a wind energy survey for India.
• It grew to about 150 stations by 1996.

Which honours and facts should you know?

• She became a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 1977.
• She received the INSA K. R. Ramanathan Medal in 1987.
• She had a stroke in 1994.
• She died on 16 August 2001 in Thiruvananthapuram, aged 82.

What is the memory hook?

Think “retired 1976, wind survey 1984”. Her work did not stop when she left the IMD.

Four mix-ups come up again and again. Learn each pair.

What are the traps?

• PhD: She never received a PhD. Madras University refused it because she had no MSc.
• Training: She trained in Britain, in meteorological instruments, not in physics.
• Which year? She joined the IMD in 1948 and retired in 1976.
• Sonde: The first successful ozone sounding was in 1964. The project began in 1962.

How do you remember them?

Think “no PhD, 1948 to 1976, ozone 1964”. Match each fact to its number.