Hindi
Great Grand Masti….Greater disappointment!
MUMBAI: Indra Kumar acted in and made a few Gujarati films in the era of tax exemption and subsidy offered by the Gujarat government to promote Gujarati films. Indra’s forte in those days was to thrive on vulgar gestures and double meaning dialogue. It worked because Gujarati films catered mainly to a certain level of audience. He also came to be called the Dada Kondke (the legendary Marathi filmmaker) of Gujarati films. Indra directed some notable films in Hindi with top stars.
With corporate studios calling shots and stakes gone sky-high, survival for independent filmmakers became impossible. Indra decided to go back to his Kondke style of film making starting with Masti (2004), followed by Grand Masti (2013) to now come up with the third part of his Masti series with Great Grand Masti.
The Great Grand Masti has the same agenda as its earlier versions which is to weave a comedy around vulgarity. The male and female anatomy is the theme around which the makers plan to play. To this end, Indra lets loose his three generally out of work male characters from his earlier films, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani and Vivek Oberoi. All that these three have in mind is sex 24×7. It oozes from all their actions.
All three are married to very revealing and willing girls but all three girls carry excess baggage which keeps the trio from getting anywhere close to their spouses. Since the lads are desperate for sex and their own women are not available to them, they need to look elsewhere. They decide to embark on a village where Riteish has a palatial property to sell.
The makers think it is time to make this film hattke from the earlier two. So the angle of paranormal is added to consolidate the comedy. This is rare because paranormal on its own has few takers in Hindi films, let alone with a blend of comedy. Last one in memory is late producer-actor Deven Verma’s Bhaago Boot Aaya, inspired from a James Hadley Chase novel, Miss Shumway Waves A Wand. But, to a disastrous results.
In absence of a script or good gags, Indra lets his three non-actors loose on the screen as they start with trying to seduce the sexy maid, Urvashi Rautela, at the palatial house and, later, to save their lives when they realize that the maid is a ghost waiting to be seduced for the last 50 years! The hide n seek between the guys and ghost is meant to be funny but it is not and falls flat. In its 127 minute duration, the only funny scene the film has is of Viagra aftereffect which, again, has been lifted from Mel Brook’s comedy, History Of The World (1981). And, that too has been killed by stretching it too far.
The film is a poor specimen of comedy, entertainment or whatever it may be called. Nothing works here. The performers keep to their reputation and don’t act; over two hours of buffoonery is what they resort to.
The film is poor on all counts and has no hopes at the box office.
Producers: Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Sameer Nair, Aman Gill, Ashok Thakeria, Sri Adhikari Brothers, Anand Pandit.
Director: Indra Kumar.
Cast: Ritesh Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela, Pooja Bose, Amar Saxena, Sanjay Mishra, Shreyas Talpade.
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.
