The information and broadcasting ministry of the Indian government The Indian government, which until then was

a monopoly broadcaster, initially dismissed STAR TV as a 'nine-day wonder'. However, as the satellite and cable juggernaut rolled on, officials in the information and broadcasting ministry of the Indian government began to sit up and take note about current affairs. Their efforts generated a nationwide controversy over what came to be called STAR TV's 'cultural invasion' of India. For its part, STAR TV had not reckoned with the obstructionist ways of the Indian bureaucracy. Masters in the art of restrictive practices, bureaucrats drawn not just from the information and broadcasting ministry, but also from the ministries of law, finance and communications, raised objections to various aspects of STAR TV's operations in India. In 1993, the second year of STAR TV in India, they proposed legislation to regulate the cable industry. Called the Cable and Satellite(Regulation) Act, the proposed law was an unabashed attempt to protect the government's monopoly on broadcasting. Through its television network Doordarshan and AllIndia Radio, the government sought to perpetuate what it proclaimed to be a 'natural monopoly.' Faced with a major threat to its operations for General knowledge, STAR TV worked with its Indian partners and business associates, including cable operators, to defeat the proposed law. In the end, lawmakers in India's Parliament shelved the government's bill, saving the day for the rapidly expanding cable and satellite television business in India. However, a Pyrrhic edge marred the company's lobbying victory. STAR TV was in favour of regulation focusing on standards and technical specifications that it believed was essential to the continued growth of the cable industry in India. The defeat of the bill meant that the cable industry would remain unregulated, seriously impaired by the lack of investment and innovation. The problem: a nineteenth-century law proclaimed during British colonial rule in India. According to the Indian Posts and Telegraph Act 1885, no private firm could be granted the right to lay cables on public property. Under its provisions, the cable business simply could not grow in any organized fashion. To circumvent the hoary law, India's ingenious cable operators set up a makeshift network slinging cables over private property, putting signal boosters in place to strengthen the signal that tended to weaken with distances. Despite the innovations of cable operators, subscribers were denied quality reception and had to make do with not just poor pictures and sound but frequent disruptions caused by failing boosters and fluctuating power frequencies. It was fairly obvious that the cable business was doomed to a makeshift hole-in-the-wall existence unless the 1885 law was repealed. Of that, there seemed little prospect.