Anna Mani was an Indian physicist and meteorologist, who played a vital role in making India self-reliant in the field of weather observation instruments.
Anna Mani made many valuable contributions to the design of weather observation instruments and played a vital role in making India self-reliant in measuring aspects of the weather.
He was also an early advocate for harnessing solar and wind power as alternative energy sources, foreseeing the benefits they promised for his country.
Mani was born Aug. 23, 1918, in Peermade, a village in the Indian state of Kerala. Her father was a civil engineer and an agnostic.
To honor her contribution to science, Google on Tuesday will dedicated its Doodle to Mani in celebration of her 104th birthday.
She retired as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department and served as a visiting professor at the Raman Research Institute.
Mani made contributions to the field of meteorological instrumentation, conducted research, and published numerous papers on solar radiation, ozone, and wind energy measurements.
She was the seventh of eight children in her family, and a voracious reader. At the age of eight she had read almost all the books in the Malayalam public library.
On her eighth birthday, she declined to accept her family's customary gift of a set of diamond earrings, asking instead for a set of Encyclopædia Britannica.
After graduating from the Pachai college, Mani worked under Prof. C V Raman, researching the optical properties of ruby and diamond.
In 1948, she joined the meteorology department in Pune, where she published numerous research papers on meteorological instrumentation.