Kalanidhi Maran
Age: 43 years
Remuneration for 2008: Rs 32.41 crore (Rs million)
Worth: $2.6 billion
Designation: Chairman and managing director
Group: Sun TV Network
Other companies: Sun Pictures, Sun Direct, 20 television channels including Sun TV, Udaya TV, Gemini TV, Surya TV and Surjo TV, 45 FM radio stations including Surya FM, S FM and Red FM, two Tamil newspapers including Dinakaran and four weekly Tamil magazines including Kungumum. It also runs a philanthropic organisation, Sun Foundation.
Background: Despite coming from a hardcore political background -- his father is the late Union Industries minister Murasoli Maran, his brother Dayanidhi Maran was the former communication and IT minister, his great-uncle is Tamil Nadu's veteran politician M Karunanidhi – Kalanidhi was more interested in television. He began his independent career in 1991 with the monthly Tamil video news magazine, Poomalai. He was just 27 had had, under his belt, an MBA from the University of Scranton, USA.
He went on to launch Sun TV, the first privately owned Tamil television channel, on April 14, 1993. Today, Sun TV is one of the largest broadcasters in India. Its footprint includes programming and channels in all the southern languages. It has also launched a DTH arm and recently forayed into film production.
Sun TV was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange on April 24, 2006. After the listing, Maran was mentioned in Forbes's list of the world's billionaires; this year, he features on the list at No 446.
Image: Kalanidhi Maran, chairman and managing director, Sun Network, being felicitated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January, 2005. | Photograph, courtesy: Sun Network
Also read: The top 10 email scams
Advertisement
