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India’s met department – beyond the life and times of Anna Mani
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One day in 1945, an unusual passenger boarded a ship that set sail from India, carrying decommissioned British soldiers who had been deployed in the Second World War back to the United Kingdom. Anna Mani, a Malayali Christian woman in her thirties, was crossing the choppy oceans to England, on a scholarship to study instrumentation in the field of meteorology, or weather sciences.
Mani would remain in the United Kingdom for three years. On her return, she would become a pioneering figure in the then emerging field of meteorology. It was ironic that Mani travelled to the United Kingdom for her training. For she helped the Indian Meteorological Department evolve beyond its beginnings as a tool in the imperialist enterprise of the British empire, and grow into a public service institution that, until 2003, was the only body in India that carried out meteorological observations.
Today, the IMD is often a subject of ridicule. This year, for instance, it received much flak in the national media for its inaccurate prediction of the monsoon’s arrival in the northern states. But media attention on its shortcomings often elides the IMD’s successes. Few noticed that months ago, in May, it had accurately forecasted Cyclone Yaas, which…