Anna Mani: Google Honors ‘Weather Woman of India’ With Doodle

Anna Mani was one of India’s first female scientists. Google honored her with a Doodle on her 104th birth anniversary. She is also known as ‘Weather Woman of India’.

Anna Mani Google Doodle: Tuesday marked the 104th anniversary of the birth of a brilliant scientist and meteorologist Anna Modayil Mani, and Google created a special doodle in her honor. 

She was the Deputy Director General of the India Meteorological Department and one of the country’s first female scientists (IMD).

Mani made significant contributions to weather forecasting, and her research enabled India to provide precise forecasts. 

She also published other papers on solar radiation, ozone, and wind energy devices in addition to this. Her efforts made it possible for the country to utilize renewable energy.

Mani, who was born in 1918 in Peermade, Kerala, initially intended to pursue dancing but changed her mind after discovering her passion for physics.

Since she was a young child, she has been a voracious reader and has practically finished all the books in her local library.

Mani was awarded a research fellowship by the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru in 1940. She pursued her focus on diamonds and rubies while studying spectroscopy under Nobel Laureate Sir C V Raman here. 

She then left for Imperial College in London, where she would later pursue a career in meteorological instrumentation, in 1945.

In 1948, Mani went back to India and started working at the IMD. By 1953, she was in charge of the section after taking a particular interest in creating domestic infrastructure for weather forecasting in India. 

Under her leadership, the fabrication of more than 100 meteorological instruments was standardized and streamlined.

Mani was one of the first proponents of renewable energy in India, having published multiple papers on the topic throughout the 1950s. Later, she started a company that produced wind and solar energy equipment.

Mani held significant positions within the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations. In 1987, she was awarded the INSA K R Ramanathan Medal for her outstanding contributions to science.

On August 16, 2001, Mani passed away in Thiruvananthapuram. The World Meteorological Organization presented her profile and interview in honor of her legacy on the 100th anniversary of her birth in 2018.