Hindi
Judwaa 2 hopes to entertain
*Judwaa 2 came after a long gap that was filled by mediocre and non-entertaining films. There were no films in the last few months which could draw out the families from home to watch a film.
Two weeks before Diwali was not the right time to release a film but, to counter that, there was also a long holiday weekend with Dussehra on Saturday and Gandhi Jayanti holiday on Monday.
The film rode on the brand equity of the 1997 original, Judwaa, starring Salman Khan in dual role. Salman even helped promote Judwaa 2 through its promos. The film took a decent opening last Friday with Rs 155 million as Saturday improved by bounds as expected, and so did Sunday as the film put together Rs 579 million for its opening weekend.
Gandhi Jayanti holiday may have have proved to be a major boost to the film’s collections.
*Sanjay Dutt’s comeback film, Bhoomi, has flopped. The film could add little to its opening weekend, and had just made about Rs 95 million for its first week.
*Haseena Parkar proved to be another disaster. One wonders at the choice of such subjects to make films! Films and Rani Laxmi don’t work but someone somewhere thought a film on Haseena Parker will work? The film managed to collect Rs 63 million in its first week.
*Newton proved to be surprise packet as its choice as the Indian entry for the Foreign Language Oscar coincided with its Friday release. Two other films to release on the same Friday, Bhoomi and Haseena Parker, being way below par, Newton got a boost as the people’s first choice. The film, which was poor on day one, picked up to end its first week with collections of Rs 112 million.
*Lucknow Central managed to add just about Rs 75 lakh in its week two to take its two week total to Rs 110 million.
*Simran added Rs 13 million in its week two to take its two week total to Rs 158 million.
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.
