Shankkar Aiyar is a prominent India-based political economy analyst, columnist and author.

His path-breaking book Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change fetched him national acclaim as a public intellectual. Accidental India, an in-depth study of the political and economic history of modern India, examines the country’s transformation through the arresting angles of seven game changers. The book argues and establishes that the turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or planning but serendipitous consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost.

Aiyar’s second book Aadhaar – A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, published by Westland Amazon in 2017, chronicles the setting up of the world’s largest biometric identity platform which serves as the foundation of India’s digital governance infrastructure. Released by the President of India and received by the Prime Minister of India, Aadhaar-A Biometric History is an unusual dramatisation of contemporary history, of the political and economic changes, has been published and is globally available in five languages.