Hindi
Censors clear Shanghai with U/A certificate
MUMBAI: The Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has cleared Dibakar Banerjee‘s upcoming film Shanghai with a U/A certificate. However, the Board has effected one major cut: a scene where a local politician is shown being abused.
Earlier this week, the Mumbai unit of the Congress party had called for a ban on the song Bharat Mata Ki Jai saying that it hurts patriotic sentiments and degrades India. In a letter addressed to union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ambika Soni, Mumbai Congress vice-president Charan Singh Sapra has contended that the content of the entire song is an insult to all countrymen who respect India as their motherland.
The song in mention contains controversial words like Sarkari Hathiyaar, Dhandha, Chanda, Dengue, Malaria, Gobar (cowdung), that Sapra alleged are deliberately used to defame the country.
Sapra had sought an immediate and total ban on the song from being broadcast/telecast in any manner, deleting it from the movie and to fix accountability and initiate action against the concerned censor board officials who cleared the offensive number.
In another development, the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea seeking stay on the release of the film by Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga, president of Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena who, through a PIL, had sought an interim stay on release of ‘Shanghai‘ until its song ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai‘ was deleted.
A division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rajiv Shakdher remarked, “We do not find anything objectionable in the said song. In a democracy, every person has a right to voice his views and opinions… the same right to speech and expression cannot be curtailed except under some circumstances.”
“The author of the song has merely sought to portray the existing state of affairs in India, once considered a golden bird… is now infested with diseases like dengue and malaria,” the bench observed.
Based on the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos, Shanghai is a political thriller directed by D. Banerjee and stars Emraan Hashmi and Abhay Deol. The film is slated for release on 8 June.
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.
