Chief of IB Rajiv Mathur, and RAW’s K C Verma are due to retire this December. There is a lot of activity among the top circles for these two top posts of India’s intelligence agencies. Their successors will be decided in August-September itself. As a matter of policy the government has decided that the IB chief will be from the same agency, but the chief of RAW will be from outside the agency. Two officers are the senior-most in IB as of now. Nechal Sandhu belongs to the IPS batch of 1973, and he could be the next RAW chief. Ajit Lal of Himachal cadre and from the 1974 IPS batch could head IB. It is worth mentioning here that M K Narayanan, who was instrumental in electing IB and RAW chief is almost inconsequential in this now. When Narayanan was the chief of IB, Mathur and Verma were far junior to him. Since h became the governor, his interventions in all matters of IB and RAW have become rare.