Hindi
‘Bombay Velvet’ collects Rs 15.8 crore in opening weekend; ‘Piku’ picks up
MUMBAI: Bombay Velvet has turned out to be the disaster it was predicted to be. From casting Ranbir Kapoor as a Tommy gun totting criminal to the way the film’s promotion was handled, especially the publicity material, went against it. From the film’s posters to promos, nothing inspired viewer confidence or curiosity.
The film’s opening weekend collections are a terribly poor at Rs 15.8 crore. Kapoor has his fan following and, to an extent, so does Anushka Sharma, yet the film failed to garner decent footfalls on its opening day. The emerging word of mouth publicity from those who caught the movie early happened to be so negative that the film failed to better its Friday figures even on Saturday, which is a normal trend howsoever bad a film may be. It is strange that thanks to social media discussions, those who still went to watch the film thereafter did so mainly out of curiosity as to what was so wrong with this film?
On the other hand, Piku is going great guns. Having had a lukewarm response with the opening day reporting a mere Rs 5.32 crore, the film went to double its opening day figures with Rs 11.2 crore on its first Sunday and continued the good run through the rest of the week till Thursday to put together a first week tally of Rs 41.42 crore. The film added another Rs 14.6 crore for its second week to take its 10-day total to Rs 56.02 crore.
Kuch Kuch Locha Hai saw poor collections of Rs 3.55 crore for its opening week.
Gabbar Is Back held well in face of little opposition and managed to collect a handsome Rs 18.1 crore in its second week to settle at Rs 74.5 crore after its second week run.
Margarita With A Straw added about Rs 15 lakh in its fourth week to take its four-week tally to Rs 5.95 crore.
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.
