Hindi
Kashish 2021 announces panel discussion on same-sex marriage rights
Mumbai: The 12th edition of Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival – South Asia’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival, is underway from 19 August to 5 September, screening 221 films from 53 countries over three weekends. During the weekdays the festival is programming several interesting panel discussions and filmmaker Q&As.
On 31 August at 6 p.m, the panel is set to discuss ‘Marriage Equality – What is the Way Forward’. The topic is especially relevant to the current times in India when the petition for same-sex marriage rights is being heard in the Delhi high court.
Speakers at the panel include first openly gay prince & activist Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, gay couple & petitioners for same-sex marriage rights in Delhi HC Parag Mehta & Vaibhav Jain, transman activist Vihaan Peethambar & his wife Rajashree Raju, gay couple from Belgium Peter Strijdonk & Stijn Deklerck, and renowned Belgian author & speaker David Paternotte. The panel is moderated by former Mr Gay India and activist Suresh Ramdas.
“It is said that marriages are made in heaven and I’m very positive that we will see heaven in India with marriage equality getting accepted and we will definitely win and I’m very optimistic about it,” said Manvendra Singh Gohil.
“I was thinking about how in 2015 when marriage equality came to the US, it came in the evening, there was a Supreme Court judgment and president Obama had asked the White House staff to illuminate the entire building with pride colors. So I remember going with 1000s of people gathering there and cheering and it was so exciting and I looked at Parag and I said, do you think Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace in India, would ever light up like this. And he said, you know we’ll make it happen; and that’s what we’re trying to do and we hope we succeed,” said Vaibhaj Jain partner of Parag Mehta, both of whom are plaintiffs in a landmark court case before the Delhi HC which seeks to legalise same-sex marriage for 1.4 billion people in the world’s largest democracy.
“I think for trans people in India we view marriage like everyone else. You want to marry for companionship, you want to marry for security, for stability, but above all as a means for social acceptance from a society that does everything to suppress your rights,” said transman Vihaan Peethambar who married his partner Rajashree Raju in 2019 in Kerala.
“No one would have expected so many countries to adopt same-sex marriage in 20 years, and now it’s about 30 countries. So, the good news is that these countries are increasingly diverse – from Argentina to Taiwan and South Africa to Belgium. So these countries have nothing in common. Which means that tomorrow if India wants to adopt same sex marriage it’s possible,” said David Paternotte, renowned author from Sweden who has written books on marriage equality.
“I really wanted to get married and I had to ask Stijn four times basically before he said yes. For me it was a celebration of love, and the thing for me was also important because I’m much older than him and I was concerned about what will happen when I’m not there anymore, so I wanted also to have the legal status, to be equal to everybody else,” said Peter Strijdonk who met his partner Stijn Deklerck in 2005, and they got married in 2011 in Antwerp, Belgium.
“Hoping yes I wish I can have this as well, but should I go outside India to have this or can I have this in India and now that seems to be coming into some sort of reality,” said Suresh Ramdas.
The panel is supported by the consulate general of the Kingdom of Belgium in Mumbai. The panel can be watched at http://www.youtube.com/user/KASHISHfilmfest.
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.
