RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has, as this column noted yesterday, a distinguished dad, R Govindarajan, who served the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, for many distinguished years.

Mr Govindarajan -- who if we recall rightly was the 'topper in his Indian Police Service batch, which also included the legendary Julio Ribeiro -- was the acting R&AW chief when  Swedish Radio broke the Bofors story in 1986.

Mr Govindarajan had returned from an overseas trip late that night and was apparently unaware of the Bofors break when then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi telephoned him for more information early morning.

Angered that the top spy was unware of the Bofors expose, Rajiv Gandhi moved Mr Govindarajan out of RA&W. He was later appointed Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

The well informed Pranab Dhal Samanta has an interesting piece on Dr Rajan and his dad in the Economic Times on Monday (read it here).

In a conversation with The Hindu Businessline days after his son became the RBI governor, Mr Govindrajan said, "Im proud of Raghus achievements, but it is a difficult situation and we hope he will be able to come out of it. Its an ordeal by fire for him, but he never fights shy of challenges."

You can read more from that feature here.