Hindi
Actors Chandrashekhar and Manoj Kumar honoured at Jagran Film Festival
NEW DELHI: Veteran Chandrashekhar whose film career spans from the black and white era to the early part of this century received the Grand Prize for lifetime contribution to the cinematic arts while thespian Manoj Kumar was honoured for his work as the Icon at the Jagran Film Festival which concluded in Mumbai over the weekend.
The 90-year old Chandrashekhar has acted in 186 films commencing in 1947 with Arsi. Beginning as an actor in Fashion in 1957, Manoj Kumar went on to act in or make a large number of films, many of them with patriotic themes which got him the nickname of Bharat Kumar. The government also honoured him with the Padma Shri.
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Versatile thespian Sridevi bagged the best actor (female) award for her comeback film English Vinglish, while the best actor award was shared by Ranbir Kapoor for Barfi! and Farhan Akhtar for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Trupti Bhoir got a special mention as actor (female) for the Marathi film Touring Talkies produced by her and directed by Gajendra Ahire.
The best film award went to the film Kai Po Che!; which also bagged the best director award for Abhishek Kapoor and the background score award for Hitesh Sonik.
Among those who gave away the awards were the versatile Kamal Haasan, veteran filmmaker N Chandra, producer-director Sudhir Mishra, Tushaar Kapoor and Divya Dutta. Festival Advisor Manoj Srivastava was also present.
The programme presented by Kunal Kapoor and Huma Quraishi also included performances by the group Mati Baani, a World Music band combining elements of Hindustani Classical with various styles of Folk music and New age sounds
Ship of Theseus received the maximum awards: best debut director award for Anand Gandhi, the Jury award for best actor for Neeraj Kabi, the cinematography award for Pankaj Kumar, and the sound designer award for Gábor ifj. Erdélyi.
The special jury award was presented to Vishwaroopam for raising the bar of mainstream Indian cinema to an international level. The film also received the best editor award for Mahesh Narayanan.
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Aditi Singh Sharma received the best female singer award for the title song in the film Heroine while actor-singer Ayushman Khurrana received the male singer award for the film Vicky Donor. The best music award was given to Pritam for the film Barfi! for his brilliant compositions.
Vicky Donor also bagged the best screenplay award for Juhi Chaturvedi.
Kaushal Oza won the best short film award for his film After Glow.
A special highlight of the festival was the presence of Max Lefrancq Lumiere, grandson of Louis Lumiere, who screened the first-ever films made by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895 in Paris. Irrfan Khan and Dilip Tahil were among those present.
A total of fifteen cities were covered by the 4th edition of the Jagran Film Festival, which marked one hundred years of Indian cinema.
The Festival commenced in Delhi in July and culminated in Mumbai from 24-29 September. In between it travelled to Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra, Meerut, Dehradun, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Indore, and Bhopal.
The various sections included the Jagran Classics of Indian films to mark a centenary of cinema, international and national shorts, the country focus on Korea, and World Panorama, and Indian showcase.
The centenary celebration included screening of films like Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy , Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay , Bimal Roy’s Madhumati and Do Bigha Zameen, Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Mani Ratnam’s Nayagan, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand, Vijay Anand’s Guide, K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam among others.
A special feature this year was Cinema for the Sellers – an Indian competition for Advertising Films.
Other sections include World Panorama, Indian Showcase, Indian Premieres, and Jagran Shorts.
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.
