Hindi
Biopics & sports-based films help popularise sporting culture in India
MUMBAI: “Sattar minute, sattar minute hai tumhare paas … shayad tumhari zindagi ke sabse khaas sattar minute … (Seventy minutes, seventy minutes is what you have … may be the most important seventy minutes of your life..)”.
These famous lines spoken in true Shah Rukh Khan style and many other such nuggets woven into a drama with various twists and turns, and ups and downs went on to make the 2007 Hindi film Chak De India — loosely based on real life incidents highlighting the Indian women’s hockey team’s journey from outcasts to gold and glory having being coached by a disgraced goalkeeper — one of the biggest hits of that decade. It also gave India an iconic phrase: ‘chak de India’, denoting winning against odds.
Though India is primarily a cricket-crazy nation and success of sports theme based films like Chak De and later Pan Singh Tomar (a national athlete’s life story from the sports tracks to that of an outlaw ultimately shot down by police) notwithstanding, the local film industry put more faith in action and romantic flicks. Unlike Hollywood that always turned to the sports field to get inspiration for gut-wrenching and raw drama. Remember Raging Bull, the Rocky series or flicks based on boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s life and footballer Pele? Or, for that matter, Escape to Victory?
However, India has witnessed a trend of late: movies being made on both popular and not-so-popular sports and sports personalities. The rationale being viewers convert into fans boosting the popularity of non-cricket sports desperately needed in India.
Bollywood suddenly discovered that biopics of sports personalities do get the cash registers ringing in theatres and, later, when the rights were sold to TV channels. Stars who won medals to empty stands or forgotten are now getting the glory they deserve.
If Chak De India pitchforked the much-neglected-in-need-of-a-boost hockey into limelight and also conceiving of fast-paced hockey leagues with foreign and domestic players, films like MS Dhoni, Sachin: A Billion Dreams,Azhar and Jannat capitalised on popular cricketers and the darker side of betting and match-fixing, respectively. Dangal and Sultan (wrestling), Mary Kom (boxing), Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (athletics) not only turned out to be box-office hits, but also did a lot of good to lesser followed sports, creating newer fan bases.
“Sports biopics have played an important role in inspiring generations of youth not just in India, but globally. They help in channelising youth’s energies positively and in a way that contributes towards society building. It also drives home a deeper message on life and showcases the pain and toil that go behind the achievement of fame, popularity and, above all, respect,” says Sportscomm Co-Founder Abhoy Chattopadhyay.
In recent years Dangal, undoubtedly, is the most popular sports films, highlighting the travails and glory of Haryana’s Phogat sisters, trained by their former national champ wrestler-father for the big stage and medals. Launched in December 2017 with a budget of Rs 70 crore, the box office collection went to clock Rs 2,122 crore worldwide, out of which more than Rs 1,300 crore was made only from the Chinese market where most viewers saw sub-titled versions to experience the true flavour and energy of the local language. The film has also been watched over 345 million times on Chinese streaming platforms.
The Broadcast Audience Research Council viewership of some of the top sports biopics premiered on TV includes Dangal (16.2 million impressions) followed by MS Dhoni (8 million impressions).
The movie Mary Kom helped boxing increase its reach and popularity in India as people started watching and following the game more fervently as they connected with players like Mary Kom and now-turned pro boxer Vijender Singh.
According to Chattopadhyay, by reproducing the life journey of a successful athlete on the silver screen, the target audience is “taught to appreciate the years of dedication and hard-work behind all that glitz and glamour” and the fact that there are no short-cuts to success – and in life.
Said a sports executive: “In a country bereft of a sports culture, sports biopics help in creating an ecosystem for the future where parents encourage children to take up a particular sport as a career option — a support system so vital to producing sporting champions — simply because movies play a huge influencing role in society.”
Chak De, for example, gave women’s hockey a new lease of life as well as contributed towards the growth of women sports in the country. Dangal too played a very critical role in helping wrestling reach out to various corners of the country and encourage many more girls to take up the sport in what is still a patriarchal society. Movies like MSD may not have boosted the popularity of cricket, already a craze, but, according to the sports executive, it helped many youngsters from smaller towns gather the courage to take up sports as a career option, including cricket that was earlier looked upon as an urban game with most cricketers coming from big cities and metros.
Speaking to Hindustan Times newspaper in September last, the 43-year-old actor Farhan Akhtar, who essayed the role of the Flying Sikh Milkha Singh in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag admitted that the film was a “turning point” for him with the rigorous training and strict diet for the shoot having positive side effects. “I have not been able to go back to the way I used to eat or drink before I started training for the film,” Akhtar explained, adding, “Working on the movie made me realise the true meaning of fitness and the value of getting enough rest.”
More biopics and sports-based films in the pipeline include Gold and Soorma on some now-forgotten Indian hockey stars, flicks based on the life and times of Indian badminton stars Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, and the country’s lone individual Olympics gold-finger shooter Abhinav Bindra.
A three-language biopic is also being readied on former badminton champ P Gopichand, the mentor of quite a few current sensations like Sindhu, Nehwal and K. Srikanth, in Telugu, Hindi and English. Another movie is dedicated to the great all-rounder and India’s first cricket World Cup lifting captain Kapil Dev.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures last year announced that it had acquired the rights of a film on the life and times of Indian woman cricket team captain and legend Mithila Raj, who also happens to be the highest run-getter in the world. It was under her captaincy that India went to reach the final in the women’s cricket World Cup 2017.
While Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO Ajit Andhare said the studio had always showcased content with strong women characters and was proud to be collaborating with the “young and inspirational” Raj, Varun Chopra, Director, Medallin Sports, who facilitated the Raj-Viacom association, went a step further to opine the proposed film would inspire and motivate future generations [of young girls].
Sports biopics nudge people’s interest in newer sports in a cricket-crazy nation. However, the sport on which no biopic has been made yet, but the game itself is a hit on TV (Pro Kabbadi League on Star Sports) is kabbadi. We hope that too will happen soon.
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Star ushers in IPL’s new era with a bang
Launch of 1st indian sports radio channel – sports flashes
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.
