Finance
Google Doodle today on August 23 commemorated the 104th birthday of Indian physicist and meteorologist Anna Mani, one of the country’s first female scientists. Her life’s work and research enabled India to make accurate weather forecasts and paved the way for the country to harness renewable energy.
Mani grew up in the former state of Travancore, where he was born on this day in 1918. (present-day Kerala). She spent her childhood surrounded by books. Mani had read almost every book in her public library by the age of 12! She was an avid reader her entire life.
She attended Women’s Christian College (WCC) after high school and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science with honors in physics and chemistry from Presidency College, Madras. She taught at WCC for a year after graduation and was awarded a scholarship for post-graduate studies at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. She studied spectroscopy, specializing in diamonds and rubies, here under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman.
She published five papers, finished her Ph.D. dissertation, and began a graduate program at Imperial College, London, where she learned to specialize in meteorological instrumentation between 1942 and 1945.
When she returned to India in 1948, she began working for the India Meteorological Department, where she assisted the country in designing and manufacturing its own weather instruments. She excelled so much in this male-dominated field that she was promoted to division head in 1953. More than 100 weather instrument designs were simplified and standardized for production under her direction.
Mani was also a pioneer in the use of alternative energy sources. She established a network of solar radiation monitoring stations and published several papers on sustainable energy measurement throughout the 1950s.
Mani later rose through the ranks to become the Deputy Director General of India’s Meteorological Department, as well as holding several key positions in the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. She was awarded the INSA K. R. Ramanathan Medal in 1987 for her outstanding contributions to science.
She was appointed as a Trustee of the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore after her retirement. She also established a company that produced solar and wind energy devices.
Anna Mani, happy 104th birthday! Your life’s work has made the world inspired for brighter days.
Source:TN
