About Kalanithi Maran Kalanithi Maran(Tamil: கலாநிதி மாறன்), born 1965, is the Chairman and Managing Director of Sun Network, No 1 media company in South Asia and Asia Pacific Region ) which owns television channels, FM radio stations, and newspapers in South India. He got into the business at the age of 27 with monthly news video called Poomaalai which was circulated among Tamil Nadu public thru video lending library. He is a son of the Late leader Murasoli Maran and a grandnephew of DMK president M Karunanidhi, and the brother of Dayanidhi Maran, India's ex-Minister for Communications and Information Technology & the current textiles minister.He started his TV channel with an invetsment of 86000$ from bank loans and he proved to be successful inspite of his father's political rivals ruling the state for most of the period since he enterted into media business.He was a 1999 recipient of the International Young Business Achiever award from the Worldcom group, New York. Kalanithi Maran was also among the few representatives at a roundtable with visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton. He was India's 20th richest person ranked by Forbes. Sun TV was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange on April 24, 2006, with 10% of the shares widely held and 90% still owned by Maran. Prestigious Forbes named him as "Television king of southern India" . He is now ranked 349th in the world.