His memoirs, Inside IB and RAW: A Rolling Stone that Gathered Moss,[4] published in 2008 made news for the insider details it contained about two of the highest intelligence agencies in India.[5] The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1983, for his contributions to society.[6]
When Research and Analysis Wing was formed in 1968 as a splinter agency of IB, Nair became the deputy of Rameshwar Nath Kao, the founder director of the agency.[11] During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, he was in-charge of the operations there and his contributions in training the Mukti Bahini guerrillas are reported to have played a vital role in the successful liberation of Bangladesh.[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.[1] He was moved to Minority Commission as its secretary from where he superannuated in December 1978.[7] However, he was involved with R&AW operations again with the accession of Indira Gandhi to power again in 1980, and was known to have contributed to the restructuring of the agency.[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.[1]
He died on 17 November 2015 at his daughter's residence in Bengaluru where he spent his last years, at the age of 95, survived by the daughter; his wife had preceded him in death three years earlier.[1]
^ ab"Padma Awards"(PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2016. Archived from the original(PDF) on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 3 January 2016.