When the pressure started building up to set up IIT in the West, Jawaharlal Nehru sought Soviet assistance in order to set up the institute in Mumbai. Krishna Menon (the then Defence Minister) and closest to the Russians, got Brig Bose appointed the first director of IIT Bombay when it got established in Powai in 1958. As a fallout of the prevailing Cold War, the Americans offered to help to set up yet another IIT.