Anna Mani was a physicist and meteorologist from India. She retired as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department and later taught at the Raman Research Institute. On her 104th birth anniversary on August 23, 2022, Google honored Mani with a Google Doodle. She is also referred to as the ‘Weather Woman of India’
Anna Mani was born on 23rd August 1918 in Peermade, Kerela. She earned a B.Sc Honors degree in physics and chemistry from Pachaiyappas College in Chennai (formerly known as Madras) in 1939. She was awarded a research scholarship to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 1940. She enrolled at Imperial College, London, in 1945 to pursue graduate studies in Physics. She did, however, end up specializing in meteorological instruments.
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She worked under Prof. C V Raman after graduating from Pachai College, researching the optical properties of ruby and diamond. She joined the Meteorological Department in Pune after returning to India in 1948.
Mani designed an instrument called ozonesonde in the year 1960. This device helped to measure atmospheric ozone.
She was a member of numerous scientific organizations, including the Indian National Science Academy, the American Meteorological Society, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Association for Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, and others. She was awarded the INSA K. R. Ramanathan Medal in 1987.
In 1969, she was appointed Deputy Director General and relocated to Delhi. She worked as a WMO consultant in Egypt in 1975. In 1976, she retired as the Indian Meteorological Department’s Deputy Director General.
She had a stroke in 1994 but later survived. Mani passed away on August 16, 2001, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerela.
On the occasion of her 100th birthday, the World Meteorological Organization published a biography of her, as well as an interview with the physicist. Anna Mani never married.
