Swaminathan Aiyar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is a noted Indian journalist. An alumnus of The Doon School and St Stephen's College, he earned a master's degree in economics from Magdalen College, Oxford. He is currently consulting editor of The Economic Times, India's leading financial daily that is part of Bennett, Coleman & Co, the same company that owns The Times Of India. He is also a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian think-tank in Washington DC, and an occasional media consultant to the World Bank. Swaminathan Aiyar writes a popular weekly column titled, "Swaminomics" in the Times of India where he discusses economic and political issues pertaining to India and the world. Mr Aiyar has prepared several reports and papers for the World Bank. He was also, in 1976-85 and 1990-98, the India correspondent of The Economist. Earlier, he was Editor of Financial Express (1988-90) and Eastern Economist (1980-82).He has two books to his credit: Towards Globalisation (1992) and Swaminomics: Escape from the Benevolent Zookepers (forthcoming, Times of India, 2007).

Anklesaria is Mr Aiyar's second wife's maiden name and he claims to have taken on this name to exhibit some sort of equality where men will take on their wives names if wives take on their husbands. His wife, Shahnaz, is a Parsi.

Mr Aiyar hails from Tamil Nadu and is a Brahmin Iyer. However, he is an atheist. Mr Aiyar's elder brother, Mani Shankar Aiyar is a politician and serves as Minister for Panchayati Raj in the Indian government. Mr Aiyar has 3 children, Pallavi, Shekhar and Rustom.