Upin and Ipin going to Bollywood in April

MALAYSIA’s popular animated 3D characters Upin and Ipin will be going to India’s Bollywood this April.

Berita Harian reported that Upin and Ipin will be translated into the Hindi language and screened at 400 cinemas during the school holidays in India after the movie, “Upin dan Ipin: Geng Pengembaraan Bermula” attracted the attention of the Indian film industry.

The plan was finalised through a memorandum of understanding signed between Les’ Copaque Production Sdn Bhd and Indian company Indiatales Media Private Ltd during a ceremony which was witnessed by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak last Friday.

Les’ Copaque managing director Burhanuddin Md Razi said that with the collaboration, it would be easier to enter the huge market in India which has a population of over one billion.

So far, he said more than 70,000 DVDs of the movie had been sold including in Indonesia.

> Utusan Malaysia frontpaged a report on the wives of six fishermen appealing to the Malaysian Government to help speed up their husbands’ release.

Their husbands were detained by Indonesian marine police in northern Bengkalis for allegedly trespassing into Pulau Rupat waters.

Listianiningsih Abdul Kadir, wife of one of the detainees, appealed to the Government to help secure the release of her husband Mahad Jantan. She said she could not afford to buy milk, food and pay for daily expenses.

Mahad and five other fishermen, Muhammad Safar Muhammad, Badiuszaman Ahmad, Abu Bakar Gani, Anwar Kamis, and Abdullah Safri Abdul Gani from Tanjung Keling in Malacca were detained by Indonesian marine police last Wednesday,

Muhammad Safar’s wife Siti Haboyah Mohd Kassim, 35, said she also could not afford to buy milk for her children and that the water supply to her house was recently cut as she did not pay the bill.

Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a > sign, it denotes a separate news item.