India, May 25 -- When the India Meteorological Department was created in 1875, it had just one employee: the British meteorologist and palaeontologist Henry Francis Blanford.

He held the title of Imperial Meteorological Reporter, and his job was to study India's climate and weather systematically, in order to issue timely storm warnings and monsoon forecasts.

At the time, India had been under a sort of attack from the weather.

In the winter of 1864, two tropical cyclones ripped through the eastern states, killing over 100,000 people. A series of droughts and famines followed, killing millions more.

The imperial British government, having recently taken over from the East India Company in the wake of the 1857 war of independence, decid...