K. Sankaran Nair

K. Sankaran Nair (20 December 1919 – 17 November 2015), known as Colonel Menon among his colleagues, was an Indian civil servant, diplomat and the director of Research and Analysis Wing.

[6] Sankaran Nair was born on 20 December 1919[7] at Ottapalam, in Palakkad district of the south Indian state of Kerala[8] and did his graduate studies at Loyola College, Chennai.

[1] After Kao's resignation from R&AW in 1977 (reports suggest that he was forced to demit office),[7] Nair succeeded him as the director but his tenure lasted only three months as he resigned from the post, reportedly in protest,[12] when Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister of India, downgraded the position of the director of R&AW from rank of a Cabinet Secretary.

[8] In 1981, he was given the responsibility of the Secretary General of the 1982 Asian Games[13] and four years later, in 1986, he was appointed as the High Commissioner of India to Singapore, holding the post until his retirement from active service in 1988.

[6] In 2008, he published his memoirs, Inside IB and R&AW: The Rolling Stone that Gathered Moss, which narrated his official life at Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing and the book featured many notable personalities such as Sanjay Gandhi, Morarji Desai, V. C. Shukla, Indira Gandhi, R. N. Kao, Y.