Dayanidhi Maran

Dayanidhi Maran (Tamil: தயாநிதி மாறன்) (born December 5, 1966, Kumbakonam, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India) is a member of parliament in India’s 15th Lok Sabha from Chennai Central constituency and Additional Deputy Leader of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). He was also the Minister for Textiles in the Union Cabinet, and has also served as the as the Minister for Communications and Information Technology before that. He resigned from the position of Minister for Textiles in July 2011.

He is the son of Late Mr. Murasoli Maran and the grandnephew of DMK president M Karunanidhi. He is the younger brother of Kalanidhi Maran, the founder and managing director of Sun Network. The Marans' vast media and entertainment empire includes Sun TV network with 20 channels and 45 FM channels, DTH service and two newspapers and four magazines apart from film production and distribution business besides stepping into aviation business through SpiceJet.

He is an Amateur Radio Operator. His HAM Radio Callsign is VU2DMK. He had his Schooling with Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai. He received initial education in Tamil Nadu and graduated in Economics from Loyola College in Chennai. He also attended the “Owner /President Management Programme” (OPM) from Harvard Business School (USA).

Contested and been elected twice as member of parliament from Central Chennai Constituency in Tamil Nadu as a DMK party candidate. His winning margin was of over 1,34,000 votes, i.e., 62% in the total votes polled.

He was appointed as Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology on 26 May 2004. For a quite brief time he was away from ministry. Later he was appointed as Minister for Textiles during the year 2009.

As of 2004, he is an Indian Rupee millionaire having declared assets of 16 million Indian rupees (approx. 360,000 US dollars).

On 7 July 2011, Maran quits office as CBI implicated him in the 2G Scam.