The News Corporation-Zee Telefilms deal is likely to result in a company that will not only be a world-class media conglomerate but a corporate blue chip. There is already talk that Zee supremo Subhash Chandra's clout in the new millennium may be reminiscent of Reliance chairman Dhirubhai Ambani's in the '80s and '90s.

The deal, coming as it does after a five-year stormy partnership between the two high-profile media majors, is seen as a victory of sorts for Corporate India over the multinational brigade. Chandra, a one-time rice packer in Hissar, Haryana, is being credited with outwitting...