Google Doodle: Who is Anna Mani and what is she famous for?

Google marks Anna Mani's birthday by sharing a Google Doodle. Who was Anna Mani? What are her contributions to the country? Why is she famous? Read this article to know more

Google Doodle is celebrating the 104th birth anniversary of renowned yet underrated physicist and meteorologist Anna Mani on Tuesday, August 23. She is one of the biggest names in Indian physics whose work enabled us to make accurate weather predictions.

Apart from weather forecasts, her work helped India succeed in renewable energy. Interestingly, she shares her alma mater with notable scientist CV Raman, lawyers VL Ethiraj and CP Ramaswamy Iyer, as all of them hail from Tamil Nadu and studied at Presidency College, Madras.

Anna Mani is considered a national icon of women's empowerment in the country as she broke the stereotypes by fighting the gender-based norms and excelling in a male-dominant field. Here's the inspiring story of Anna Mani's life.

Google Doodle: Who is Anna Mani?

Anna Mani was born in a family of Syrian-Christians in Peerumade village of Kerala on August 23, 1918. An avid reader, Anna Mani's life work inspired India to work on renewable energy and weather forecasts. 

There's an anecdote about her childhood that she once refused a set of diamond earrings and demanded a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica when she was 8 years old.

She graduated in Physics and Chemistry from the prestigious Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai), and also got a research scholarship for the Indian Institue of Science (IISc). After that, she went to London's Imperial College to study Physics and later got inclined toward meteorological instruments.

Before going to London, she was a tutor at Women's Christian College. At IISc, she studied spectroscopy under Nobel Laureate Sir CV Raman. In 1948, she returned to India to make weather instruments.

She live up to expectations and produced nearly 100 weather instruments for India. Later, she set up a workshop that produced instruments for measuring wind speed and solar energy.

Google Doodle: What is she famous for?

While her whole life was inspiring, we can pick some events that made her famous across the world. A physicist with Gandhian values, Anna used to wear Khadi clothes. Apart from being a prolific scientist, she was also a patriotic citizen who left a lucrative lifestyle aborad to work for India.

She was a supporter of alternative energy sources. In 1950, she created a network of solar radiation monitoring stations and published many papers on sustainable energy measurement. Weather forecast measurement has been some of her biggest contributions.

In 1987, she became the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and was awarded the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), K.R Ramanathan Medal, for her contributions to the country and science. In 2001, on August 16, she died in Thiruvananthapuram Kerala.

Google Doodle: What makes Anna Mani a national icon?

Anna Mani's life was an inspiring journey for many nationalists. She was a supporter of civil disobedience moevement and wore only Khadi as a symbol of her national identity.

After studying in London, she had the option to stay and work there. But her love for India brought her back home. As a result, she produced hundreds of meteorological equipment and contributed to the science of India.

Written by Zuhair Zaidi