Hindi
Mom…..Lacks thrill
If it is Delhi, the theme of rape is acceptable. Gangrape, rather. So, the location is a given. Sometimes, the police does its best but is let down by other arms of the law and fails. Looks like in Delhi, the seat of power, various parts of the law work to defeat each other’s purpose, not to complement it.
So, we have an old-fashioned tried-and-tested vigilante story like Charles Bronson’s Death Wish (1974). Death Wish was about a father, Bronson, taking the law into his own hands to avenge the rape and death of his daughter. The film went on to become a successful franchise with more instalments.
Mom is one such story with an Indian touch. Here, a woman, when failed by the law to deliver her justice, turns the avenger.
What takes the privilege away of being a rarity of the subject is the fact that not very long ago, a similar film, Maatr, starring Raveen Tandon, had hit the screens where she ventures out to avenge the rape of her daughter in the same Delhi. She also played a teacher in a school where her own daughter is a pupil.
Mom is about Sridevi in her 300th film since her debut on screen in her childhood. Without going much into what led to what, Sridevi’s character is married to the character of Adnan Siddiqui, a widower with an 18-year-old daughter, played by Sajal Ali, from his previous marriage. The couple have another daughter, much younger.
Sajal has not yet accepted Sridevi as her mom. She misses her biological mother, is always curt with Sridevi and calls her madam as she calls her during her school hours. Sridevi is a school teacher and Sajal also happens to be one of her pupils.
She may be too old to be in a school at 18 but the makers don’t care for such detailing. A boy in Sajal’s class has an evil eye on her. His sending dirty video clips to her backfires. Come a Valentine’s Day party at a farmhouse, the boy makes his move but is rebuffed.
The alternative is always a taken in Delhi, it looks like. Assault and rape follow on Sajal. Evil deed done, she is dumped into a nullah as dead. The culprits are identified, tried and acquitted. Sridevi and the family are devastated, frustrated and angry — all the emotions that a film can use in such a situation.
Sridevi takes it upon herself to settle the score with the four culprits. In the due course, she also engages a jasoos (detective) as he calls himself, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a guy with X-Ray eyes so to say. Also lurking in the background is the character of Akshaye Khanna, a cop who has arrested all the culprits like a super cop but loses out to the judiciary as all the culprits go scot-free. He is left banging his hands on tables.
The rest of the film is about Sridevi’s revenge and getting her stepdaughter to accept her.
Mom is a badly scripted film with glitches all around and contradictions in the script. The director takes a Hollywoodian approach to treat the film but never gets a grip on the proceeds right from the beginning.
In the era of songs sans lip sync, a couple of good tunes also fail to make an impact.The background score is good. Dialogue is good at places, especially Nawazuddin’s which sound extempore rather than penned. Editing needed to be much sharper. Camera work is fairly good.
The film counts totally on Sridevi to carry it through and she does a reasonably good job. Nawazuddin, who has been given a special look for this film, becomes a caricature for no apparent reason. A detective should blend in the crowd not wanting to be spotted then what is the logic of giving Nawazuddin a getup with which he would stand out in a crowd of thousands?
Adnan Siddiqui is sincere but his role has nothing much to offer. Sajal is does well. Akshay Khanna also gets the short end of the bargain with nothing material to do.
Mom is a much hyped film with which it does not live up.
Producers: Boney Kapoor, Sunil Manchanda, Gautam Jain, Naresh Agarwal, Mukesh Talreja.
Director: Ravi Udyawar.
Cast: Sridevi, Akshaye Khanna, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Adnan Siddiqui, Sajal Ali.
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.
