With the Star India Private Limited, a company which owns almost all regional channels in South India, including Asianet, strengthening its stand on the rate which it levies on each channel, the cable TV operators in Kerala have found themselves in a baffling situation. This time, the Star group has come up with a 100 per cent hike in rates. Each year, the companies which own the channels increase rate for the paid channels. In Kerala, a total of 300-320 channels are available from different owners.  Among them a great number of channels belong to the paid category. Interestingly, the Star group has not levied the same increment on all operators. Instead it had asked only Kerala Vision, one of the leading cable operators in the State, to ally with the new rates.