Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar (born October 12, 1942) is a noted Indian journalist. Currently he is Consulting Editor, Economic Times and writes regularly for the Economic Times and The Times of India.
Aiyar was born to V.Sankar Aiyar, a chartered accountant and Bhagyalakshmi Sankar, in a Brahmin Iyer family. However, he is an atheist. His older brother, Mani Shankar Aiyar is a politician and served as Minister for Panchayati Raj in the previous Indian government.
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 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.
Earlier, he was Editor of Financial Express (1988–90) and Eastern Economist (1980–82). 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. 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.
He has two books to his credit: Towards Globalisation (1992) and Swaminomics: Escape from the Benevolent Zookepers (forthcoming, Times of India, 2007). 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.
Anklesaria, Mr Aiyar's second name is taken from his 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. Aiyar has 3 children, Pallavi Aiyar, Shekhar and Rustam.
Some Recent Articles Posted by him are as follows;
