Hindi
SRK starrer Chennai Express storms ahead with Rs 92 crore
MUMBAI: Rohit Shetty’s big budget action-comedy Chennai Express has made the most of the Eid weekend solo release. The Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer’s high decibel promotion has also paid rewards as the film has swept the box office to set a new weekend collection record. Also, calling it a clean family entertainer has helped, as the film ended its weekend (paid previews on 8 August included) with Rs 92 crore, an outstanding fete on all counts.
Having exhausted a lot of its ‘Must Watch’ audience, the film has slowed down at multiplexes but holding on well at single screens. The film left no chance of using various platforms for promotions, SRK featured on popular television fiction and non-fiction shows over the past one month including Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, Madhubala: Ek Ishq Ek Junoon, Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, Comedy Nights With Kapil to name a few.
Of the smaller releases of the last week, BA Pass starring Shilpa Shukla (Chak De India! fame) seems to have impressed the critics as a noir film! The film managed to put together Rs 5.35 crore for its first week.
Rabba Main Kya Karoon starring Akash Chopra, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal and Riya Sen has bordered on the one crore rupees mark in its first week.
Bajatey Raho coined as a revenge comedy and having some well known names to boast off like Tusshar Kapoor, Dolly Ahluwalia, Ranvir Shorey, Ravi Kishan, Vinay Pathak, Vishakha Singh struggled to put together another Rs 55 lakh in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 7.05 crore.
Ramaiya Vastavaiya which marked the debut of Girish Kumar alongside Shruti Hassan collected Rs 1.2 crore in its third week to take its three week total to Rs 25.85 crore.
D-Day has done reasonably well to collect Rs 1.5 crore in its third week to take its three week total to Rs 19.5 crore.
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag which saw Farhan Akhtar depict the role of ‘the flying sikh’ Milhka Singh has collected Rs 8.5 crore in its fourth week to take its four week total to Rs 102.75 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.
