Hindi
58th National Film Awards presentation on 9 September
NEW DELHI: The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the country‘s highest honour in cinema, will be presented to renowned filmmaker K Balachander by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil at the ceremony to give away the 58th National Film Awards for 2010 on 9 September.
The Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘ by Salim Ahamed has been chosen the best film while the popular blockbuster ‘Dabangg‘ by Abhinav Singh Kashyap received the award for the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment.
Tamil and Marathi films dominated the awards with 14 and ten awards respectively in the feature film category, with Hindi films getting seven awards, four of which went to ‘Ishqiya‘ by Vishal Bhardwaj: female playback to Rekha Bhardwaj, location sound recording by Kaamod Kharade, re-recordist of final mixed track to Debajit Changmal, and music direction to Vishal Bhardwaj himself.
‘Do dooni chaar‘ by Habib Faisal got the best Hindi film award.
The Indo-Bangladesh venture ‘Moner Manush‘ by Goutam Ghose received two awards: the Nargis Dutt Award for best feature film on National Integration and for Make-up by Vikram Gaikwad.
The best actor award went to Dhanush in the film ‘Andukalam‘ in Tamil and Salim Kumar for the Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘, while the Best actress award has gone to Mitalee Jagtap for ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘ in Marathi and Saranya Panvannan for the Tamil film ‘Thenmerkku Paruvakkaru‘. The child actor award has gone to four children: Harsh Mayar for ‘I am Kalam‘ in Hindi, Shantanu Ranganekar and Machindra Gadkar in the Marathi film ‘Champion‘, and Vivek Chabukswar for the Marathi ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘. The best supporting awards went to Tamil films: J Thambi Ramaiah for ‘Mynaa‘ and actress Sukumari for ‘Namma Gramam‘.
The best director is Vetrimaran for the Tamil ‘Aadukalam‘ which also got the original screenplay award for him, the editing award for T E Kishore, the choreography award for Dinesh Kumar, and the Special Mention for actor V I S Jayaraman.
Balachander is remembered for his Hindi film ‘Ek Duje ke Liye‘ and Tamil satire ‘Thaneer Thaneer‘. The award is conferred by the Central Government of India for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian Cinema. The award consists of a Swarn Kamal, a cash prize of Rs 1 million, and a shawl.
Balachander has been film director, screenplay writer and producer for more than 45 years. He has written, directed and produced more than 100 films in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. He is known for his distinct film-making style. The films he scripts and directs analyse unusual or complicated inter-personal relationships and social themes. Balachander has the uncanny knack of spotting talent.
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.
