Kuala Lumpur, Sep. 1 : At least 200 Malay Indians have been denied loans by a financial institution here, an Indian-based business association has claimed.

Malaysian Indian Business Association (Miba) president P. Sivakumar said that the Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia has not given loans to any of the 200 people it had recommended this year.

"We sent the list to AIM but to date none of the candidates had received loans," The New Strait Times quoted him, as saying.

Sivakumar said AIM, which was set up to help all Malaysians, should reveal how much it had disbursed to poor Indians over the last six months.

New Delhi - At least four workers died and two others fell ill after inhaling poisonous gas which leaked from a steel plant in India's eastern state of Orissa, news reports said Monday.

The incident occurred at a private steel plant in Sambhalpur district, 350 kilometres north-west of the state capital Bhubaneshwar, on Sunday night, the IANS news agency reported.

"Four people died and I saw their bodies. They had no injuries," Sambhalpur police chief Sanjay Kumar told IANS.

"They have died after inhaling some poisonous gas," he said, adding that police was investigating the incident although the company had not informed them about it.

Hambantota (Sri Lanka), Sep. 1: India and China are reportedly competing to gain a commercial and strategic edge in the busy sea lanes of the Indian Ocen, even as China has secured the Sri Lankan Government’s approval to build a new port in southern Hambantota.

Foreign news agency reports claim that once the port is completed, it could serve as an ideal point for international competition over energy supply routes that fuel much of the global economy.