Hindi
Box Office: ‘Ghayal Once Again’ opens to tepid response; ‘Airlift’ collects Rs 111.3 crore
MUMBAI: Sunny Deol’s home production and directorial venture Ghayal Once Again tries to cash in on his 1990’s success, Ghayal and has opened to a tepid response at the box office. The film failed to catch momentum on Saturday, showing only a slight improvement on Sunday. Ghayal Once Again ended its opening weekend with Rs 21.2 crore.
On the other hand, the Akshay Kumar starrer Airlift made the most of its perfect release period around 26 January, the Indian Republic Day, which helped its theme of patriotism. Despite being a dry theme with a documentary like feel through its first half, the film scored in its latter parts to pick up through the weekend and also thereafter. The film added a respectable Rs 28.5 crore in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 111.3 crore.
Sanam Teri Kasam, an old-fashioned mishmash of previous love stories with cancer as the theme, suffers on many counts including being slow, depressing, clichéd lack of face value and so on. The film did not even make it to the one crore mark on its opening day. It improved a bit on Saturday and Sunday, both on the lower side and not enough to salvage the enterprise. The film collected Rs 3.8 crore in its opening weekend.
Saala Khadoos pays the price for two reasons, being a sports film and being a very predictable one at that about an underdog, out of nowhere girl winning the boxing world championship. Except love stories, selling dreams is no more wise. Even Mary Kom, based on a real life champ, catered to a limited audience. The R Madhavan starrer Saala Khadoos managed to collect Rs 8.2 crore in its first week.
Mastizaade shows that senseless vulgarity in the name of sex comedy does not work. With dud performers, the film tried to attract audience only on the anatomy of Sunny Leone and this is not her first film! The film got a low weekend and failed to add much in the rest of the days, ending its first week with Rs 17.65 crore at the box office.
Kyaa Kool Hain Hum, a senseless sex comedy comes a cropper and fails badly. The film added about Rs 50 lakh in its second week to take its two week as well as lifetime business to a mere Rs 26.8 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.
