Shri. Mani Shankar Aiyar,(born April 10, 1941, Lahore), is a member of the Indian National Congress party and was formerly the cabinet minister in Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Development of the North Eastern Region in the Manmohan Singh government. He served as Union Cabinet Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas from May 2004 through January 2006 and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports till 2008.

He did his schooling from Welham Boys' School, The Doon School, both in Dehra Dun, and St Stephen's College, Delhi. He completed his B.A. in Economics from St. Stephen's and M.A. in Economics from Trinity Hall, Cambridge. At the University of Cambridge, UK, he was elected Secretary of the Union for the Easter Term of 1963. While at Cambridge, he passed with distinction the Indian Foreign Service exam and began his career as a diplomat.

He served for 26 years in the IFS, the last five of which were on deputation to the Prime Minister's Office under Rajiv Gandhi (1985-1989). He resigned from service in 1989 to take up a career in politics and the media, entering Parliament as a Congress MP from the state of Tamil Nadu in 1991. He is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee and chairman of both the party's political training department and the department of policy planning and coordination. He is, besides, a well-known political columnist and has written several books, including Pakistan Papers and Remembering Rajiv, as also edited a four-volume publication, Rajiv Gandhi's India. His special interests include grassroots democracy, Indian foreign policy, particularly with India's neighborhood countries and West Asia, and nuclear disarmament.