B.Raman was born in Tamil Nadu and studied at the prestigious Loyola college in Chennai. He followed it up with a course in Journalism. Later he worked as a Journalist with the Indian Express in Chennai for 4 years. Later he cleared the civil services exam and was inducted as an IPS officer. Raman was an
IPS officer of the 1961 batch who served for a time in the
Madhya Pradesh cadre before deputation to the
Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi. There, he was soon noticed by India's spymaster,
R.N. Kao, who took him to the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) when it was formed in 1968. From very early on in his career, Raman displayed an unwavering commitment to his work. This, along with his vast knowledge and the ability to recall details of events even after the passage of decades made him a near ideal intelligence officer. These rare qualities prompted Kao and many of his successors to entrust Raman with some of the very sensitive tasks that the R&AW undertook. It is said that on the suggestion of R.N. Kao, Raman was posted by R&AW in Paris under the guise of an Indian correspondent working for
The Hindu. There he is credited for having established a back channel with Ayotollah
Ali Khamenei and the leadership of the Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1978. He did so, using the assistance of an Iranian student in Paris whose life he had once saved. Having been one of the few surviving officers who were a witness to the creation of R&AW during 1968 by R.N. Kao, his analysis on Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and China have been an asset to the intelligence community. Raman was the author of a memoir he wrote of his days in the R&AW titled
Kaoboys of R&AW - Down Memory Lane. ==Life and death==