Hindi
Indian director Ramana’s short film ‘Living Idle’ wins international acclaim
MUMBAI: Prolific filmmaker Ramana’s short film ‘Living Idle’ has received accolades by winning 26 international awards at various Film Festivals across the globe. Five Continents International Film Festival (FICOCC) is the latest win, in May 2017.
The film revolves around the basic idea of unconditional love and how a woman loves her husband and family and goes to any extent to fulfilher duty of love without any expectations or biases towards her oppressors. It runs for duration of seven minutes.
Ramana is, at present, the Art Director at Assemblage – a leading feature film focused CGI production animation studio based out of Mumbai. At Assemblage, Ramana closely works with its Hollywood clients in areas related to visual development, visual scripting and design.
Throughout his career, he has worked on many great films like Puss in Boots, Madagascar, Elizabeth 2 & 3, and Prince of Persia, etc. Ramana has been working in the movie business for over 20 years and has been a part of renowned studios including the likes of DreamWorks and mentored by great film-makers such as Shekhar Kapur. He has always been an inspiration the artists in the Indian animation and creative industry.
Ramana is the latest addition to the award-winning team at Assemblage Entertainment, that consists of technocrats, artists and production managers with several years of experience in creating world-class animation productions in collaboration with major Hollywood studios and independent production companies globally.
On his film receivingworldwide appreciation, Ramana said, “The most important thing for a creative person to excel at his work is when he is allowed the freedom of expression. This automatically translated into one’s body of work. Working here at Assemblage, I have been given the kind of freedom that a film maker can only dream of!”
Congratulating Ramana on his recent success, ArjunMadhavan, Head of Strategy and New Business at Assemblage adds, “Ramana’s ability to translate his creative visualisation into celluloid, over a weekend’s worth of a shoot has been very impressive. Kudos to him, the brilliant actors and execution team for pulling this off!”
Living Idle is a symbolic short film that reflects actions have consequences. This is the story of an artist, a creative sculptor of idols,that puts life and colour into clusters of mud and clay. Ironically, he fails to add colour to his own creation- his world, his family, his child. The narrative revolves around how a creation of the sculptor- an idol of Ma Durga punishes him (by rendering him indisposed and idle), when he crosses all limits of abuse and shows him a life of yearning. The film concludes with a deep dawn of realisation – of how a single action- takes away from him his ability to be a prolific sculptor- that of clay and stone and that of his child’s future. The film is embedded with contrasting symbolism, as aptly reflected in its title, most strongly that of the strength of a woman, of a mother, which is – representative in Ma Durga’s rendition of ‘Good over Evil’.
The hunger for food, the hunger for physical fulfilment and the hunger for creativity are natural, necessary, and common human instincts. However, an unbalanced, excessive, and uncontrolled desire to fulfil one’s hunger leads to dire consequences, which is the story of ‘Living Idle’.
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.
