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Hathway earmarks Rs 2.2 bn for FY’12
MUMBAI: India’s leading multi-system operator, Hathway Cable & Datacom, has an investment plan of Rs 2.20 billion for the next fiscal as it gears up to aggressively push for digitisation.
Hathway will be investing Rs 1.50 billion for the digital set-top boxes (STBs) while broadband will take away Rs 400 million in FY’12. The balance Rs 300 million will be towards fibre and normal operational expenses.
“We will have a capex requirement of Rs 2.20 billion in FY’12. Our target is to seed one million STBs in the three metros ahead of the sunset deadline of 31 March 2012,” Hathway Cable & Datacom managing director and chief executive officer K Jayaraman tells Indiantelevision.com.
Hathway plans to seed one million boxes in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata and half-a-million in cities like Ahmedabad, Baroda, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Indore and Bhopal. In Kolkata, Hathway has a presence through its joint venture company, Gujarat Telelinks Pvt Ltd (GTPL), which acquired a 51 per cent stake in Kolkata Cable and Broadband Pariseva.
The company will not pursue acquisitions in the analogue cable TV business as it conserves capital for digitisation.
“We have to become like a DTH (direct-to-home) player. We will have to fight in the digital pitch. We will not invest capital on analogue acquisitions,” says Jayaraman.
The DTH operators have been rapidly expanding their subscriber base and expect to exceed their initial target of mopping up 11 million subscribers in FY’11.
Hathway will be launching HD services on 31 May, says Jayaraman.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
