Hindi
US$ 20m Drishyam fund for 10 Indian films in two years, releases showreel
MUMBAI: Mumbai-based Drishyam Films is set to launch a $20m Production Fund to facilitate the growth of independent Indian cinema and to escalate it to a global reach.
The fund will be spent in developing and producing cutting edge original content that will be true to the Drishyam vision of cinema, i.e. local in its setting but global in its appeal. It will be put to use for producing 10 independent Indian films over the next two years.
Manish Mundra, founder of Drishyam Films, expects to announce the first projects under the fund in the early 2018. In addition to the production of the films, the fund will also be used to develop Drishyam Films’ VFX Studio in Mumbai.
The production fund, which is raised independently by Manish Mundra, will help Drishyam Films towards accomplishing their goals of building a platform for unique voices of Indian independent cinema and create global content with rich Indian flavours.
Mundra says: “This fund has been set up with the objective of taking Indian cinema to the next level internationally. We plan to take our focus on content driven cinema and merge it with high technical finesse to make films that will travel across the world.”
The studio which has produced some of the most acclaimed and globally feted Indian films recently such as Ankhon Dekhi, Masaan, Dhanak, Umrika and Waiting also released a special showreel that celebrates their impressive body of work, and also gives audiences a sneak preview of their forthcoming releases.
Apart from the fund, Mundra has two new features going into production over the summer – Mohamed Gani’s Cycle, about the importance of the humble bicycle in small-town India, and Ganesh Shetty’s Anonymous, about a woman and her relationship with society as she undergoes an abortion. Both films are being readied for festival submission by the end of the year.
Drishyam Films has already had a great start to 2017, with their next release Newton starring Rajkummar Rao winning the CICAE Award at the Berlin International Film Festival 2017 and the Jury Prize for Best Film at the 41st Hong Kong Film Festival, 2017. More recently, their films won big at the 64th National Film Awards where Dhanak won Best Children’s Film, while Kadvi Hawa bagged a Special Mention.
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.
