Hindi
Ladies vs Ricky Bahl a pretty average fare
MUMBAI: Ladies vs Ricky Bahl is one of those products from Yash Raj Films where the process of limiting the budget starts with the casting itself. The burden of drawing the audience falls on the lead pair, Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma, with the other three girls being little known: Dipannita Sharma, Parineeti Chopra and Aditi Sharma. For the main location you have Goa, much exploited in recent films but not so well exploited in this film.
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Producer: Aditya Chopra. |
Ranveer Singh is a conman who picks only on women, mainly playing with their emotional vulnerability. He gains the confidence of the girl he zeroes in on as well as that of her family; to them he comes across as perfect groom material. He talks the family into some attractive moneymaking proposal only for them to realise that Ranveer Singh had vanished and so had their money. In his list of victims he adds Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Sharma and Dipannita Sharma.
Parineeti Chopra finds her gym trainer Ranveer Singh very attractive and falls for him in the blink of an eye. The only daughter, she has a moneybags of a father to whom Ranveer Singh sells a bungalow in upmarket Barakhamba Road in New Delhi. While the hero takes the first flight out of Delhi, Mr Moneybags lands in police custody for breaking and entering someone‘s property. The next target is a young widow in Lucknow, Aditi Sharma, cloth merchant. Her family is impressed by the zari work cloth material he shows them. He collects a huge order against a hefty advance before the girl and her family know they have been conned.
The third victim, Dipannita Sharma, is an ambitious corporate executive busy decorating the company premises. Ranveer Singh sells her a dud MF Hussain painting. When her case is reported on a news channel, the three victims contact each other, eventually forming a brigade to play a counter con and get their monies back from Ranveer. To lure their target, they engage the services of a salesgirl from a mall, Anushka Sharma, who never lets a visitor leave without buying something from the mall.
The film starts off on a promising note and does manage to hold interest until girls descend in Goa, where Ranveer runs his own small enterprise between conning victims. When the process of Anushka Sharma luring Ranveer into her trap starts the interest starts sagging. The three girls chasing as Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh do their thing is like kids‘ spying game! Whatever happens during this process is predictable and lacks twists and turns or exciting moments.
With a linear script, the narration is sans challenges too; direction being just usual. Music, considering the theme, is a letdown. While there are no sad scenes, there is no trace of humour either and the dialogue is routine.
Of the performers, Parineeta Chopra scores most points, playing her typical, rich, loud Delhi Punjabi girl; she fits the character to a T Aditi Sharma is mostly underplayed, that being her part. Dipannita Sharma is okay. Anushka Sharma is her natural self, not that her role offers any challenges. As for Ranveer Singh, it is very well to describe him as charming, handsome and smooth to establish his character but tough to convince the viewer.
Ladies vs Ricky Bahl a pretty average fare.
Lanka has no entertainment value
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Producer: ASA Production & Enterprises P Ltd. |
Lanka is a film about a small town real life inspired story. The real life stories such as Lanka are one off affair and are not known to catch the fancy of all cinemagoer. Usually these stories are so bizarre, that they have no entertainment value and to make such a film and expect the urban multiplex audience to accept is foolhardy.
Tia Bajpai is a medical student having come to Bijnour where her father is posted as CMO at the local hospital; Manoj Bajpayee controls the town and his word is the law here. When he sees Tia Bajpai, he wants her to be his.
Soon he takes control of Tia Bajpai and her parents‘ lives; they are literally under house arrest, being watched 24 hours by Manoj Bajpayee‘s goons and the family is at his complete mercy, helpless as he comes at whim and fulfils his urge. The third angle is added with the entry of Arjan Bajwa, whom Bajpayee loves like kid brother and for whom Manoj Bajpayee is the ultimate idol; he does what is expected of him, generally play escort to Manoj Bajpayee and do the killings for him. Having noticed the plight of Tia Bajpyee, he can‘t stay indifferent for long; he is attracted to her and decides to go against Manoj Bajpayee and help her escape. The end is on expected lines. There are side tracks of rivalries between communities which are of little interest.
The subject is dry and can be described as a documentary genre at best, providing no scope for dramatics, music or humour. Performances are routine with Manoj Bajpayee doing what he has been doing in several films earlier, Arjan Bajwa is fair while Tia Bajpai fails to involve the viewer in her plight.
There is nothing to write about for the box office prospects of Lanka since none exist.
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.
