Anna Mani Biography 
Anna Mani was an Indian physicist and meteorologist from Peeramedu, Kerala. She retired as Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department, an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India and contributed much to the field of meteorological instrumentation. She has conducted many researches regarding her subjects and has published her observations as well. She got opportunity to work under Indian Nobel laureate and physicist C. V. Raman after completing her graduation. During her last years she was settled in Thiruvananthapuram, and died in 2001. She suffered from a stroke in 1994.
Anna Mani was born in then princely state, Travancore. Peeramedu is her birth place, a hill station of Idukki district at present. Her father was a civil engineer. She had 7 siblings. During her childhood, got attracted to the activities of Mahatma Gandhi during Vaikom Satyagraha and also nationalist freedom struggle movements, she started wearing Khadi garments only. She graduated in Physics from Presidency College Chennai in the year 1939. On a scholarship, she researched at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore the following year. During this time, she did her research work under Sir. C. V. Raman. Her research work was on optical properties of ruby and diamond. In 1945 she moved to London and completed her specialization in meteorological instruments.
In 1948 she returned to India she joined the Meteorological department in Pune. She did numerous research works on meteorological instrumentation and published many papers. In 1953, she became the head of the division. She standardized the drawings of around 100 different weather instruments, and also set up a network of stations to measure solar radiation. In 1969 she was transferred to Delhi as the Deputy Director General and retired from service in 1976. She remained unmarried.
Published: July 16, 2018
Updated: July 16, 2018
