Hindi
Pink: Neither strategy nor reviews helped
Pink, with Shoojit Sircar as the force behind the film, was much hyped. The film also enjoyed a great deal of media and critics support. However, all this hype did not help the film as the response on the opening day remained tepid with a business of about Rs 4.2 crore.
It is the word of mouth which matters more in the days of high-priced admission rates and the film caters mainly to the multiplex audience. As the film managed to generate a debate on the social media, its collections took a jump on Saturday with figures of Rs 7 crore plus while Sunday went very well as the film collected Rs 20.6 crore for its first weekend.
Raaz: Reboot opened a bit better benefitting on its brand as it followed three Raaz episodes. The film took a reasonable opening day collections of about Rs 5 crore but, once the word of mouth spread about its poor merits, it dropped on Saturday while the Sunday collections remained static for the film to collect Rs 14.8 crore for its opening weekend.
Baar Baar Dekho proved to be a let-down on all counts. A farfetched story idea, to script writing to execution and casting, it looked amateur in all departments. The film earned almost total rejection. With an opening weekend of Rs 18.4 crore, the drop in the four days that followed was telling as it closed its first week with a total of Rs 26.1 crore.
Freaky Ali, a lift from a Hollywood film, Happy Gilmore, tried to attempt a comedy around the sport of golf, an unfamiliar sport with the Hindi audience, backfired. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s talent could not sell this dud.
The film had a poor opening weekend of Rs 6.4 crore, and had little hope of sustaining through rest of the week as it collected Rs 10.7 crore for its first week.
Akira continued with its poor run in second week. The film collected Rs 3.1 crore to take its two week tally to Rs 27.2 crore.
A Flying Jatt collected Rs 10 lakh in its third week to take its three week total to Rs 35.6 crore.
Rustom collected Rs 20 lakh in its fifth week to take its five week total to Rs 124.3 crore.
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.
