''There is more to Indo-Malaysian relations than Bollywood''

New Delhi, Feb 10 (UNI) There is more to India-Malaysia relations than just Bollywood, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Madhubala and Shah-rukh Khan.

Media of the two countries have an increasing role to play in bridging the gap and promoting understanding of each other's cultures in the larger interest of peace and development in the region, Malaysian Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said here.

Launching the New Delhi Bureau of the Malaysian News Agency 'BERNAMA', he said his country attached great importance to India and hoped that more direct news would flow to India would help in building peace.

''As Information Minister, I shall be taking keen interest in news from here...Through BERNAMA, I will be learning more about India than Bollywood, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Madhubala and younger stars like Shahrukh Khan,'' he said in his address on the occasion.

Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, who was the Chief Guest on the occasion, called for cooperation between India and Malaysia and India and ASEAN and free-flow of people besides free-flow of information.

''I tell ASEAN that if we work together, we will be able to progress through internal dynamism that we have...For that infomation is important not just about politics but also about opportunities and how economiees are moving.

Trade could not be developed unless comfort levels between the peoples of the two countries were developed and media had a big role to play, he added.

The Malaysian Information Minister, while underscoring the interest of the people worldwide in India's economic success, hoped that BERNAMA's Delhi bureau would enable it to feel the pulse of India.

''The agency's reporting will focus on the country's economic development, especially in IT, where the Indian human capital has taken the world by storm,'' he said.

Malaysia has 27 major TV channels and Newspapers including vernacular papers and Bernama distributes the news to all media organisation in its country.

It has offices in major cities of the world. The agency was established in the late 1960s. It is headquartered in Kuala lumpur and it has also established the Non-Aligned Movement News