Shankkar Aiyar is a prominent India-based political economy analyst, columnist and author. His path-breaking book Accidental India fetched him acclaim as a public intellectual. A journalist for over three decades, Aiyar has covered every parliamentary election since 1984. His 1991 scoop on India pledging its gold reserves drew world attention to the crisis in the economy which consequently compelled liberalisation. Aiyar has analysed every Budget since liberalization. As a columnist Aiyar specializes in the interface of politics and economics. He has authored a study on India's socio-economic fault lines and its hundred worst districts. His investigation on twenty-five years of political corruption is part of an anthology. He has been a Wolfson Chevening Fellow at Cambridge University where he studied the lifecycles of emerging economies. Aiyar is a Visiting Fellow at the IDFC Institute.