Hindi
Grand Masti reaches Rs 64.7 crore; Phata Poster opens poorly with Rs 19.5 crore
Phata Poster Nikhla Hero, starring Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D’Cruz, which had opened to poor response, could not improve much over the weekend. The film has managed to collect Rs 19.5 crore for its opening weekend.
The Lunch Box starring Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui has cashed in on all the positive reports and good word of mouth as the figures almost doubled on Saturday and tripled on Sunday over its opening day collections to record an impressive Rs 6.25 crore for its first weekend.
Grand Masti the sequel to the 2004 Masti directed by Indra Kumar did excellent first week business as the masses and the youth took to the film. The film had to depend on domestic collections mainly to cover itself as not much is expected from overseas or satellite. The film has gone onto collect Rs 64.7 crore for the first week.
Horror Story the Vikram Bhatt scripted screamer has collected Rs 4.6 crore in its first week.
John Day starring Naseeruddin Shah, Randeep Hooda, Taran Bajaj and Harsh Chhaya has failed badly.
Shuddh Desi Romance sustained very well; the Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra, Rishi Kapoor and Vaani Kapoor starrer’s two week total is Rs 45.25 crore.
Zanjeer has failed miserably. The film has managed a mere Rs 20 lakh for its second week to take its two week total to Rs 13.95 crore.
Satyagraha the political drama from Prakash Jha has added Rs 1.5 crore in its third week to take its three week tally to Rs 60.1 crore.
Madras Café has collected Rs 75 lakh in its fourth week to take its four week total to Rs 41.4 crore.
Chennai Express has collected Rs 45 lakh in its sixth week thus taking its six week tally to 200.95 crore.
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.
