Hindi
‘Roy’: Shot in the dark
MUMBAI: The title often shows a lack of imagination and is an indication of what is to follow. Roy, as it turns out after eons through the film, is the name Ranbir Kapoor goes by. Roy looks like a film inspired by watching a lot of the last century’s Hollywood and European films.
Arjun Rampal is a film maker, who is on his third version of a series, Guns III, having earlier made two very successful versions. His inspiration comes from a suave robber, Ranbir Kapoor, who steals antiques and paintings. Having bumped into Ranbir once, he puts Ranbir’s exploits on screen.
This once, Rampal is stuck for ideas and keeps working on his antique typewriter but nothing comes across on paper that he can go with. He realizes he needs inspiration. He proceeds to Malaysia without a script and starts shooting the film at random. No wonder then that what he comes up with through the Roy’s first part looks like a film to promote Malaysian tourism.
Soon, Rampal finds his inspiration in Jacqueline Fernandez. She is in Malaysia to shoot a short film. Rampal makes her a part of his story. Roy is out to steal a part of a portrait of which the other part is with his handler. There is a huge offer if both the parts are available together to complete the portrait. Rampal manipulates his story idea where now the part of the portrait is in Jacqueline’s possession from where Ranbir will steal it. For this purpose, he also finds an actress who is Jacqueline’s lookalike.
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| Producers: Divya Khosla Kumar, Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar Director: Vikramjit Singh Cast: Arjun Rampal, Jacqueline Frenandez, Ranbir Kapoor, Anupam Kher (guest role), Shibani Dandekar |
As in most of the film, what happens thereafter is beyond understanding. The job is made easy for Ranbir as the actress has lured Ranbir to her bed and he just has to pick up the portrait hanging on the wall and make an early departure. Actually, it is all quite confusing.
This is a film of whims and fancy. There is no script and a thin line about a thief inspiring film stories, which qualifies as cock and bull stuff. The director has no clue what he wants to make and seems to think that shooting low light dark scenes makes one a genius. The film, however, has excellent visual value backed by a good background score. Mumbling passes as dialogue and is not easy to catch. Songs are good but orchestra overpowers the lyrics.
There is little in this film for actors: Rampal is lovelorn but hardly looks it. Ranbir Kapoor sleepwalks through his brief role. Jacqueline emerges the most sincere of the lot. Anupam Kher has a brief role, which is irrelevant.
Roy is a waste of lot of resources with no hope of returns.
‘MSG: The Messenger’: Of self-gratification
Having gained some recognition through media because of his numerous controversies, Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan, as he calls himself, decides to use his film watching hobby to help promote him and his cult, Dera Sacha Sauda, on a national level. The result is MSG: The Messenger, a film for the janata.
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Producer: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan Director: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan Cast: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan |
And, no he does need stars to project him on screen; he can do it himself. So the Insan plays himself as a pure hearted person who is clean of thoughts and deeds, full of energy and preaches others to be like himself.
Insan does all the things NGOs around the world do: organises de-addiction programmes, blood donation camps, cleans streets, plants trees, rescues women from prostitution and also resettles eunuchs.
Insan also has a cure for his followers’ ailments through his ‘Ruhaani jaam,’ which is his own concoction. Insan also fights the evils of the world as he can fly, throw a mean punch and do all the stunts seen in Hollywood and Indian films.
The film, all of its 190+ minutes has Insan, each and every frame of it. What else would you expect? His costumes are garish and loud but that he has been seen to wear even in his real life.
Insan has done everything in this film from producing, directing, scripting, cinematography et al.
To make further sure his ‘hard work’ pays, Insan has also bought out tickets worth crores to make sure his followers don’t miss it!
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.
