Hindi
Viacom18 partners with Film Heritage Foundation
MUMBAI: Viacom18 has partnered with the Film Heritage Foundation to save India’s cinematic heritage. As a step towards this cause, the Film Heritage Foundation will be setting up a week-long school from 22 – 28 February, 2015 at Films Division Mumbai.
This is for the first time that an academic initiative of this nature focused on film preservation and restoration is being conducted in India. The school will consist of lectures, presentations and practical classes on film preservation and restoration that will be conducted by international experts in the field. There will also be a daily screening of a restored classic preceded by an introductory talk on the restoration. This is in line with the vision to create an indigenous resource of film archivists and restorers that will work towards preserving India’s legacy of cinema.
With over a 100 years of cinematic heritage, India is the world’s largest producer of films. India produces more than 1700 movies a year in over 32 languages. However by 1950, the industry had lost 70-80 per cent of the films including India’s first talkie Alam Ara due to lack of proper preservation. Understanding the importance of creating awareness to safeguard India’s unique cinematic history, Viacom18 has pledged its support to the Film Heritage Foundation, mobilizing the film fraternity and industry veterans to come forward to join this initiative.
Extending support to this unique initiative, Viacom18 Media group CEO and CII National Committee on Media & Entertainment chairman Sudhanshu Vats said, “At Viacom18, we don’t just create entertainment but also believe in preserving our cultural heritage for the benefit of our audience. Our partnership with the Film Heritage Foundation is an indication of how we truly support and honour the hard work that goes behind the making of a film. Our objective for this partnership is to create awareness about the importance of preserving our glorious cinematic past because if we don’t restore films, we will lose the opportunity to document the creativity of the golden age of Indian cinema. We invite each one of you to join this movement to help restore our legacy of cinema for generations to come.”
Film Heritage Foundation founder director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur added, “Most people are not aware that India has an endangered cinematic legacy. We have lost a colossal amount of our cinematic heritage and we continue to lose more every day — even recent films dating from as late as the ’90s. We need to recognize that cinema is an integral part of our social and cultural heritage that must be preserved and restored like any other art form. The idea behind the Film Preservation & Restoration School India was to create awareness about the importance of film preservation and restoration and to take the first step in training future archivists and restorers to save our cinematic heritage. Sudhanshu Vats of Viacom 18 was the first person from the film industry who had the foresight to recognize the importance and urgency of our cause and to offer his support for this pioneering educational initiative.”
The Film Heritage Foundation has collaborated with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, Cineteca di Bologna, L’Immagine Ritrovata and FIAF for this course, which is certified by FIAF – the International Federation of Film Archives. Pre-registered participants from across India, Sri Lanka and Nepal will be part of this course.
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.
