Career
He was Honorary Adviser to the Indian Prime Minister’s nuclear disarmament group, 2011-2014. He is the India Coordinator of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (PNND), and part of the Abolition 2000 network. He is associated with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Doctor Aiyar successfully lobbied the Indian government to attend global anti-nuclear conferences in Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna.
At the Vienna conference Doctor Aiyar succeeded in making a presentation at the Austrian parliament, seeking its support to reverse Austria’s negative vote at the United Nations on India’s offer of a treaty prohibiting any use of nuclear weapons. Aiyar obtained a doctorate on the breakup of the Soviet Union from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1997.
He led the first ever South Asian team to the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations. A Rockefeller Foundation "Next Generation Strategic Analyst" (1988), he writes and speaks globally on these issues.
Doctor Aiyar was Channel NewsAsia, Singapore’s face, and executive editor and prime time anchor of Cable News Network IBN, India.
He hosted the Real India Travel Show on the British Broadcasting Corporation, and began Indian television’s first popular chat show, the Eyewitness Chat Show, with Karan Thapar. Aiyar worked an anchor for Channel NewsAsia, Singapore. He became the only Indian television journalist to have interviewed both then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and Pakistan Chief Executive, General Pervez Musharraf.
lieutenant was Prime Minister Vajpayee’s only television interview to an Indian.
While working at Channel NewsAsia, a Singapore court found Aiyar guilty of outraging the modesty of a woman and sentenced him to 15 months in prison. The case attracted media attention because of its high-profile nature, and possible race tensions between the Chinese and Indian communities in Singapore.
Aiyar was released early on grounds of good behaviour. Aiyar is the nephew of the Indian politician Mani Shankar Aiyar.
