Hindi
Lafangey Parindey is old wine in new bottle
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Director: Pradeep Sarkar |
MUMBAI: Yash Raj Films’ Lafangey Parindey has some catchy tag lines……Neil Nitin Mukesh is described as ‘born to fight’, Deepika Padukone is ‘born to fly’ and the film itself as ‘play the game’; turns out that these taglines are just about all that is interesting or eye catching in the film.
Lafangey Parindey is old wine in new bottle. Born off the chawls of Mumbai where the harmony is so symbolic, Govinda and Diwali festivals are celebrated on walls skirting a mosque!
The hero fights blindfolded in a warehouse boxing ring to make a living and is a local legend. The heroine is, typically, a mall salesgirl and aspiring to win a talent reality show; this being the contemporary touch of the film! That she has turned blind following an accident but she won’t let that deter her and that is the story.
Warehouse boxing, didn’t they make such films in the 70s and the 80s Hollywood to be instantly copied in Indian films? The Bambaiyah lingo sounds forced and none of the players seem comfortable mouthing it. The police investigation angle is corny and lacks logic. As the love tale starts, the pace slows down, the chemistry refuses to work. There is no support from the music score except in choreography, which is excellent, especially in skating dances. Even though the hero is projected as a toughie, there is no action in the film except few boxing scenes which all look repetitive. The revelation in the end about the cause of Deepika’s blindness is flat with no drama at all.
The story hardly demands histrionics from its cast and Neil Nitin Mukesh makes the most of it, carrying one expression throughout the film. Deepika is bubbly and does well. Rest of the characters are caricatures, shadows of the lead pair.
While the money spent on the film shows, its justification does not. In that, the script is routine and direction is lacklustre.
Lafangey Parindey has not generated much interest pre-release and has opened with poor collections. That’s half the battle lost.
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.
