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        It says a lot about the quality of governance in Tamilnadu when rules and official decisions are made to suit the needs of the Chief Minister's family. Actually, there is not so much a government in place as much an extended family going about with its whims and fanciful ideas. The ongoing cable TV controversy in the State, and the government's decision to get into to cable TV distribution, and possibly even the DTH platform, is a direct result of the convoluted and tangled web of relationship between the Karunanidhis and the Marans. But the Chief Minister and his acolytes would like us to believe that it is all 'official'. Is it really? For long, the Marans and their media behemoth, the Sun Group, bulldozed their way in the market and elsewhere, thanks to the patronage of the DMK and the government (whenever the party was in power). Rules were subverted, threats were hurled and every trick in the book was used, and before long the Sun group (and the Marans) became a monster. A Frankenstein one, for the Karunanidhis.

        When their (Sun's) growth became humungous for their own comfort, the Karunanidhis and the Marans had that infamous and violent fall-out. From then on, the narrative began to unravel in the most bizarre and perplexing manner possible. First, a television channel, under the name which the Chief Minister prefers him to be called, was launched. Of course, it was a private venture. But all rules of the game were altered to suit the new entrant created to take on the established behemoth. Knowing that the Sun Group owed its phenomenal but controversial and tainted rise to its hold on the distribution network, the government quickly announced its intention to float a company to formally enter into the fray. With an official seal to back it, this company was the first salvo fired at weakening the Marans' media might. But the wily brothers, who know a thing or two about street fight, quickly got going with their DTH project, which obviates the need for cable TV system. Upping the ante, and taking the fight into the government, the Marans also priced their DTH venture at an unbelievably attractive rate. The government (read Karunanidhis) were perhaps caught off guard. But with the government at their disposal, the battle only intensified. First, the cable TV operators were allowed to go on a warpath. Sun TV's DTH operation, it is said, hits at the livelihood of the cable TV operators. But there are already two other big players offering DTH services all across. But none of them have had to face any problem. Not stopping with this, the government has also dropped a hint that it was not averse to getting into the DTH operation.

        The battle lines are clear and nobody is going to be mislead by whatever the Chief Minister is going to say in the matter. Many may see poetic justice in the way the Sun Group is sought to be unhinged from its position. For, it owed its growth to many strong arm and below-the-belt tactics. But having said that, two wrongs can never make a right. Sun TV being replaced by Kalaignar TV is just more of the same. And what the government is up to now is patently wrong — morally as well by the rule book.