Hindi
Indian American filmmaker and stage director Krishna Shah passes away
NEW DELHI: Indian American filmmaker Krishna Shah, who had made several films in India before immigrating to the United States where he gained fame in Hollywood and the Broadway stage, passed away earlier this week in Mumbai.
Aged 75, he had been ill since he suffered a stroke last year.
 |
Shah is best remembered in India for ‘Shalimar’, which he wrote and directed in 1978. It starred Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, O P Ralhan, Shreeram Lagoo, Rex Harrison, Silvia Miles, John Saxon, Shammi Kapoor, Prem Nath, and Aruna Irani among others.
Other films that he is remembered for include ‘Cinema Cinema’, a documentary about Bollywood that screened at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes which he co-wrote and directed; ‘Hard Rock Zombies’, released by Cannon; and ‘American Drive-In’, which he also co-wrote, directed and produced. Indian films included ‘Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Ramayana’ (1992), which he re-wrote as ‘The Prince of Light’ in 2000 when it was directed by Yugo Sako.
In the last few years, Shah had been more involved with films about India, and had been working since 2009 on the research on an ambitious biopic of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
He held a series of story-telling seminars for aspiring filmmakers in Mumbai; while he also helped fledgling diaspora filmmakers such as Harish Saluja and Nagesh Kukunoor by presenting the films at festivals and in the marketplace in India.
Born in India and a graduate of Yale and UCLA, Shah was probably the first Asian-American writer/director/producer to win critical acclaim both in Hollywood and on Broadway.
He co-authored and directed a South African stage play called ‘Sponono’ on Broadway, and adapted and directed an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘The King of the Dark Chamber’ which ran for a year and received two OBIE awards.
Other off-Broadway productions included Kalidasa’s ‘Shakuntala’, Athol Fugard’s ‘Bloodknot’ and Milton Hood Ward’s ‘Kindly Monies’ staged at the New Arts Theatre in London.
 |
His screenplays included ‘Island in Harlem’ for MGM, ‘April Morning’ for Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and the psychiatric thriller ‘Rivals’ which he also produced and directed. ‘River Niger’ starring Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones and Lou Gosset Jr. earned awards at festivals and a Golden Globe nomination as well. His animated feature film ‘The Prince of Light’ was long listed for the 2002 Academy Awards in its feature animation category.
He was known in American television as well, having written and/or directed several hit shows such as ‘The Man From UNCLE’, ‘Love American Style’, ‘The Flying Nun’ and ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’; and was an entertainment entrepreneur who served as president and CEO of Double Helix Films, the Carnegie Film Group and MRI Inc., a production and distribution company.
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.
