Hindi
Global women filmfest to showcase 140 films
NEW DELHI: France is the focus country and a total of around 140 feature and short films from over 40 countries are to be screened at the 4th India International Women Film Festival, scheduled to be held here from 7 December.
The eight-day festival which concludes on 14 December will relate to women empowerment, where women are being showcased not just as objects of visual pleasure but behind the camera.
Tributes will be paid to seven Indian women filmmakers: Arundhati Devi, Manju Dey, Sai Paranjpye, Aparna Sen, Kalpana Lajmi, Vijaya Mehta and Prema Karanth.
Hollywood actress Cassandra Gava and Faye Dunway (Oscar Winning Actress) and Bollywood actresses Juhi Chawla and Tanushree Dutta have confirmed participation to encourage women directors and join hands with the IIWFF Slogan “Women Behind the Camera”.
Many celebrities including actress and director Aparna Sen, Madhavi Mukhrjee, filmmaker Nabyendu Chaterjee, painters Jogen Chowdhory and Subha Prasanno are also expected to be present.
According to Festival Director Shymali Banerjee, the Festival has the support of the Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Culture, and External Affairs, and the Government of Delhi NCT. The Associate Partners who have confirmed so far include Sahara India, Asian Academy of Film and Television, 1Take Movie.COM, Times of India, Radio Mirchi, and Zee TV.
The programme this year includes Competition –World Cinema (Feature), Competition (Documentary), Indian Panorama, Retrospective, Kinder Films, Joint Hands, Focus Institute, Male Voice, and Short Films (Out of Competition).
IIWFF is launching a Talent campus this year, which is a platform for amateur filmmakers to conquer the real reel experiences from internationally acclaimed filmmakers. The 2008 Talent Campus will include certain smoldering issues in the field of World Cinema, and will be in the form of Seminars, Workshops and Guest Lectures, and a specially designed programme ’24 Hrs Filmmaking Competition’ which is also a Part of Talent Campus. The top two films will be awarded in the Closing Ceremony and all films will be exhibited on the last day of the festival. Each candidate will be given a Certificate of Recommendation.
The film festival ambience will include a film lounge, seminars, Face to Face, Painting Exhibitions, Open Forums and Cultural Programmes.
Hindi
India’s telecom subscribers cross 1.32 billion in February 2026
Broadband base swells past 1.06 billion as Jio and Airtel tighten grip on the market.
MUMBAI: India’s telecom sector is ringing in steady growth once again adding millions of new connections every month while the race for broadband supremacy continues to heat up like a fiercely contested cricket match. According to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 April 2026, the total telephone subscriber base in the country reached 1,321.31 million at the end of February 2026. This marked a net addition of 7.31 million subscribers during the month, translating into a monthly growth rate of 0.56 per cent.
Wireless subscribers (including mobile and Fixed Wireless Access) stood at 1,273.31 million, registering a net addition of 6.97 million and a growth rate of 0.55 per cent. Within this, urban wireless connections grew to 730.75 million (growth 0.70 per cent), while rural wireless subscribers reached 542.56 million (growth 0.35 per cent).
Wireline subscribers, though much smaller in scale, showed slightly faster growth. The total wireline base increased to 47.99 million, with a net addition of 0.34 million and a monthly growth rate of 0.70 per cent. Urban areas continued to dominate wireline connections with a share of 89.41 per cent.
Overall tele-density in India improved to 92.66 per cent. Urban tele-density stood at 150.68 per cent, while rural tele-density edged up to 60.02 per cent.
The broadband subscriber base crossed a significant milestone, reaching 1,059.05 million at the end of February 2026. This reflected a healthy net addition of 6.33 million subscribers and a monthly growth rate of 0.60 per cent from January’s figure of 1,052.72 million.
Segment-wise, mobile wireless access continued to drive the majority of growth with 996.52 million subscribers. Fixed Wireless Access (including 5G FWA) added 16.51 million, while wired broadband stood at 46.02 million.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. maintained its commanding lead with 519.64 million broadband subscribers. Bharti Airtel Ltd. followed with 364.14 million, Vodafone Idea Ltd. with 129.36 million, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. with 28.70 million, and Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd. with 2.38 million.
Together, these top five players command a massive 98.60 per cent share of the total broadband market.
In the wireless (mobile) segment, private operators continued to dominate with 92.59 per cent market share, leaving public sector undertakings (BSNL and MTNL) with just 7.41 per cent.
Out of the total 1,257.29 million wireless (mobile) subscribers, 1,177.60 million were active on the peak Visitor Location Register (VLR) date, representing an impressive 93.66 per cent activity rate. Bharti Airtel led in this metric with 99.42 per cent of its subscribers active.
Meanwhile, 14.47 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in February, indicating healthy competition and customer churn across zones.
While urban areas still lead in absolute numbers, rural connectivity is slowly catching up. Rural wireless tele-density stood at 59.46 per cent, compared with the much higher urban figure of 142.32 per cent.
Fixed Wireless Access using 5G technology also showed promising traction, growing to 11.93 million subscribers. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are the primary players driving this segment.
The data paints a picture of a maturing yet still rapidly expanding telecom ecosystem. With total telephone subscribers now well past the 1.32 billion mark and broadband users comfortably above 1.06 billion, India continues to solidify its position as one of the world’s largest and most dynamic digital markets.
From bustling city streets to remote villages, more Indians are staying connected than ever before proving that when it comes to telecom, the country’s appetite for growth shows no signs of hanging up anytime soon.
