The Delhi government’s attempt to induce rain through cloud-seeding trials on October 23 and 29 has revived memories of similar operations in Tamil Nadu over the last 50 years.

As it happened in the latest case, the exercise even then was met with a modest response. The basic difference between the present and the past experiments was that while the southern State was desperately in need of water to meet its drinking water and farming requirements, Delhi tried its luck with the trials to address the problem of pollution.

In January 1970, P. Koteswaram, Director General (DG) of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), (the post then called Director General of Observatories), dropped the first hint of experiments in artificial rain-making, for which he would hold discussion with the Tami

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