‘Weather Woman of India’: Scientist Anna Mani who helped India develop meteorological instruments
Long before climate change became a popular term, an Indian woman was struggling to create devices that would help people better understand the environment.
Anna Mani, one of the world’s most prominent climate scientists, is an unknown figure to many in her home country.
She was born in 1918 in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore, now part of the southern state of Kerala. Anna Mani is known for helping India develop its own instruments for measuring weather, as this help reduced the newly independent country’s dependence on other nations.
But not only that, but they also played an important role in making it easier for scientists to monitor the ozone layer.
In 1964, he built the first Indian-made Ozone Sonde, an instrument that was inflated in a balloon and released up to 35 km above the ground to measure ozone conditions.
By the 1980s, Anna Mani’s ozone sonde was routinely used on Indian expeditions to Antarctica. So in 1985, when physicist Joseph Forman alerted the world to the presence of a large ‘hole’ in the ozone layer at the South Pole (for which he received the Nobel Prize 10 years later), Indian scientists immediately responded. But the data was confirmed by Joseph Forman Riaft, who collected this data using Mani’s invention.
Anna Mani also laid a solid foundation for India’s use of green technologies long ago. In the 1980s and 90s, they established about 150 sites for wind energy surveys.
Some of them were located in remote areas but the intrepid scientist traveled there with his small team to set up stations to measure the wind.
Meteorologist CR Sreedharan, in an article on Anna Mani, writes that her discoveries have helped scientists set up several wind farms across the country.
Mani pursued her passion for studying weather at a time when it was unusual for women to pursue higher education in addition to becoming scientists. At an early age, he showed a passion for knowledge and a desire to follow an unbeaten path.
Born into a wealthy family, Anna Mani was the seventh of eight siblings, he had five brothers and she had three sisters. Rejecting a gift of diamond earrings from her parents on her eighth birthday, she asked for a set of encyclopedias.
Scientist Abha Sur, in her essay, ‘A definition of Anna Mani’, writes that ‘In her teenage years, Mani chose to study instead of getting married like her sisters. His decision was neither opposed nor encouraged by his family.
But Anna Mani’s journey to becoming a meteorologist was not easy. In his family, men were encouraged rather than women to take up high-level professions. Her dream was to study medicine, but since she was unable to do so, she decided to study physics as she was good at it.
He received his degree from Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai), and studied the properties of diamonds in the laboratory of Nobel laureate CV Raman at the Indian Institute of Science before receiving a government scholarship to study abroad. Spent five years doing
The purpose of this scholarship was not only to study physics but also to study meteorological instruments as India needed expertise in this field at that time. Sridharan writes that Mani seized the opportunity and traveled to Britain on a military ship.
He spent the next three years studying all aspects of weather instruments, including how they were built, tested, calibrated and standardized. On his return to India in 1948, a year after independence from British rule, he joined the Meteorological Department.
There he used the knowledge acquired abroad to help India develop its own equipment which until then was being imported from Britain and other parts of Europe.
He initially set up a workshop to manufacture more than 100 different types of instruments, including instruments for measuring rainfall, temperature and atmospheric pressure. He even prepared detailed engineering specifications, drawings and manuals for these devices.
Convinced of the excellent accuracy and quality of these instruments, Anna Mani tried her best to ensure that these instruments were of the highest quality and reliable.
In an interview with the World Meteorological Organization in 1991, he said, “I believe that wrong measurements are worse than no measurements at all.”
Anna Mani also played an important role in developing instruments for measuring solar radiation in the country and establishing a network of radiation stations across the country as a contribution to her plan to explore renewable energy sources in India. And there was a step.
Sridharan writes that until then these high quality and precision instruments were monopolized by Western countries and their designs were also kept secret. So people had to start from the basics and develop the entire technology themselves.
Facing patriarchy and discrimination
Although Anna Mani achieved great success and stature in her career, she also faced several incidents of discrimination.
His mentor and patron saint CV Raman was known to allow only a few women in his lab and imposed several restrictions on them.
Abha Sur wrote in her book ‘Dispersed Radiance: Caste, Gender and Modern Science in India’ that ‘Raman had strict rules for keeping men and women separate in his laboratory.’
And so most of the time Anna Mani and one other student worked alone, isolated from their peers and unable to engage in healthy academic debate and discussion of scientific ideas.
Anna Mani also faced discrimination from some of her male colleagues. In Abha Sur’s book, she talks about colleagues who would immediately pick up on even the slightest mistake and describe it as a sign of ‘women’s inability’ to handle or experiment with equipment. .
When Mani audited a course on theoretical physics, it was generally assumed that the task was ‘not up to him’.
In the early 1960s, when Anna Mani had the opportunity to be part of the International Indian Ocean Expedition, which involved equipping two ships with instruments to study the seasons, she went on ships to collect this data. Couldn’t go.
“I wanted to go but in those days women were not allowed on Indian Navy ships,” Anna Mani told WMO in a 1991 interview.
But like many women of her era, Anna Mani refused to let herself fall prey to patriarchal attitudes.
She proved that her gender never came in the way of her professional aspirations.
She had told Abha Sur that ‘I never felt that I was penalized or privileged for being a woman.’
Mani died in 2001 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He never married and according to available information he never regretted his decision. His work and life have influenced people in India and abroad.