Anna Modayil Mani: Pioneer of weather and atmospheric studies

This distinguished meteorologist, physicist and former deputy director general of the India Meteorological Department is remembered for research in subjects as diverse as solar radiation, ozone and wind energy measurements. Her efforts earned widespread recognition in India and abroad.

Anna Modayil Mani was born in a Syrian Christian family in Travancore, Kerala, on August 23, 1918. She was the seventh of eight children of a civil engineer. Mani began her educational journey at His Highness Maharaja’s School for Girls in Trivandrum (present Thiruvananthapuram) and Christava Mahilalayam High School for Girls at Alwaye (present Aluva). Unlike her sisters, who got married as teenagers, she insisted on pursuing higher studies. Mani completed BSc (Honors) from the Presidency College of Madras (now Chennai) in 1939. A year later, she obtained scholarship to do research at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (present Bengaluru) under Nobel laureate CV Raman and worked on fluorescence and absorption of light in diamonds and rubies. With the government scholarship for an internship, Mani joined Imperial College in London in 1945 to study meteorological instrumentation.

Career
Mani returned to India in 1948 and joined the instruments division of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) at Pune as scientist. She published numerous research papers on meteorological instrumentation. By 1953 she became the head of the division. Later, she was elevated to the post of IMD deputy director general. In 1967, she served the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Pune and in 1975 acted as the WMO advisor in Egypt. After retiring, she was scientist emeritus of Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, for three years. In a three-decade career, she published papers on topics as diverse as atmospheric ozone, international instrument comparisons and national standardisation of meteorological instrumentation.

Legacy
Mani never married. In 1994, she suffered a stroke that affected her adversely. Her elder sister, Chellamma Chandy, took care of her till the very end. She breathed her last on August 16, 2001 in Thiruvananthapuram. Her two books — Handbook of Solar Radiation Data of India and Solar Radiation over India have become standard reference guides in solar and thermal system of India. Her work on measuring wind speeds in over 700 locations across India had laid the foundation for the country’s wind energy dreams. It was because of her initiative to develop modern instruments for meteorological measurements that the Central Radiation Laboratory in Pune and the National Ozone Centre in New Delhi got recognised as the WMO regional centre.

Achievements & awards
In an illustrious career, Mani was elected to the council of Indian Academy of Sciences and served from 1971 to 1979. She was elected to the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, in 1976 and served on its council for two years (1982-84). She was also elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. She was member of the Indian Meteorological Society and was associated with WMO and International Association for Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics. She was also a member of the American Meteorological Society, the Royal Meteorological Society and the Solar Energy Society of India. She received the INSA KR Ramanathan medal in 1987.

Interesting Facts
Inspired by Gandhian principles and nationalist movement, young Mani took to wearing only Khadi as a symbol of her strong support for the nationalist cause.

In her childhood, Mani was a voracious reader. By the age of 8, she had read almost all the books in Malayalam language at her public library and by the age of 12 read all the books in English.

On her eighth birthday, she refused to accept the gift of diamond earrings, as was the custom in her affluent family. Instead, she preferred a set of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Way back in 1960, at a time when little was known about the ozone layer, Mani started her work on measuring atmospheric ozone. She also designed the ozone-sonde to measure atmospheric ozone.

In 1963, at the request of Vikram Sarabhai (Father of India's space programme), she set up a meteorological observatory and an instrumentation tower at the Thumba rocket launching facility.