Actor Darshan Dharmaraj has passed away at the age of 41, Chief Nurse of the Colombo National Hospital Pushpa Soysa confirmed.
Dharmaraj is known for his works at a number of Sri Lankan movies including Matha, Machan, Sandapana, No Address and Aloko Udapadi (Light Arose).
The exact cause of his death is yet to be announced.
MIAP
Blockworks exclusive: Palihapitiya appears wary of the lingering bear market for digital assets, according to two sources familiar with the matter
In an unexpected move to once again start accepting outside capital, Chamath Palihapitiya is angling to raise at least $3 billion for his latest, top-heavy venture capital fund, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
But this time around, the longtime crypto bull doesn’t plan to give digital assets much play. Palihapitiya’s firm Social Capital has effectively functioned as a quasi-proprietary trading firm for the last several years, having pulled the plug on a number of longtime investors to focus on investing largely founder capital.
If Palihapitiya pulls it off, the ambitious multi-billion dollar fundraise would go down as his most ambitious achievement to date and perhaps ease the sting of his latest SPAC woes.
The vehicle would be Social Capital’s fifth to date. Past funds, to various degrees, have taken substantial crypto exposures, including beginning to buy into bitcoin as a firm in 2013. The venture firm has also backed the likes of NFT marketplace SuperRareand Solana’s Saber Labs.
While digital asset-oriented startups — especially emerging play-to-earn gaming and Web3 companies, plus fintech firms trying to bridge crypto and TradFi — ought to remain one area of focus, crypto collectively appears to be overshadowed by other portfolio priorities.
Sources were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business dealings. The firm declined to comment. Axios first reported Social re-opening to external capital.
The main priorities for Fund V: backing promising startups looking to solve real-world issues across climate, deep technology (including machine learning and artificial intelligence) and cloud computing. While Palihapitiya and his team have at times played up their crypto track record in conversations with potential institutional limited partners, digital assets appear to be taking a backseat, here.
Though TradFi players have been keeping a close eye on crypto’s recent turmoil in the pursuit of vulture-style venture plays and distressed debt opportunities, indications are few asset managers have actually pulled the trigger.
That is true, as it is in Social’s case, because of an uncertainty in calling the bottom for spot cryptoassets — which all but uniformly impact valuations in the private sector — and a reluctance of top would-be investors, such as conservative sovereign wealth funds, to put sizable capital to work in the space.
In other words, the risk-reward profile is not yet there, in the eyes of some.
Fund V kicked off fundraising in recent weeks, with the plan being to launch sometime in the first quarter of 2023, at the earliest — contingent on fundraising. The fund is being marketed as having a 10% general partner commitment, or $300 million, an unusually high allocation in venture capital, where limited partners often gripe that portfolio managers don’t have enough personal skin in the game.
The vehicle is designed to split its capital into three main, equally-weighted buckets: $1 billion for early-stage companies receiving checks of between $10 million to $20 million; $1 billion for late stage companies, with checks averaging $100 million to $200 million; $1 billion for massive checks of $250 million to $450 million for opportunistic stakes in companies at various stages of development.
Fund V’s top 10 positions are earmarked to account for a whopping 70% of its entire portfolio. The term is for 10-years, plus an optional two-year extension, along with an investment period of five years. Social’s management cut is 2% and plans to take 30% of carried interest.
A brief look at the 32-year history of Sri Lanka’s national flag carrier Air Ceylon.
By Mark Finlay
Before we talk about what happened to the former Sri Lankan Carrier Air Ceylon, it is necessary to understand a little bit about the history of Sri Lanka. Located in the Indian Ocean southeast of India across the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, the island nation of Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million people.
Historically, the Greeks referred to the island as Taprobane, while the Arabs called it Serendib. When the first Europeans arrived in 1505, the Portuguese explorers colonized the island to bolster the spice trade.
During the Napoleonic Wars, fearing that the French may take over the island, Great Britain invaded, taking control of most of the coastal areas. Taking the Portuguese name Ceilao, the British changed it to Ceylon in 1815.
Now a part of the British Empire, the country needed more connectivity, and in 1947 Air Ceylon was established as a state-owned flag carrier airline. With a glut of Douglas DC-3 aircraft left over from World War Two, Air Ceylon began life with three planes flying between the island and nearby India. Air Ceylon named its three DC-3s after the Hindu goddesses Sita Devi, Viharamaha Devi, and Sunethra Devi.
On December 10, 1947, with Captain Peter Fernando at the controls, Sita Devi took off at 08:00 from Ratmalana Airport in Colombo. Aboard the flight were 16 passengers flying to Jaffna Airport in North Sri Lanka and then on to Madras in India. From Madras, the plane took the same route back to Colombo.
Air Ceylon later expanded using two leased Douglas DC-4s with flights to London and Australia. In 1949 Australian National Airways (ANA) acquired a 49% stake in the airline and took over Air Ceylon’s long-haul routes.
Following BOAC’s introduction of the de Havilland Comet on the lucrative London to Colombo route in 1953, ANA’s stake in the airline was taken over by the Netherlands national flag carrier KLM. When the Comet was grounded in 1954 following a spate of crashes, Air Ceylon leased a Lockheed 749A Constellation for its flight to London. The partnership with KLM ended in 1964, following BOAC introducing a Vickers VC 10 on the route in 1965. By now, Air Ceylon was using the Hawker Siddeley HS 748 for its short-haul flights to Madras and Bombay.
In 1972 privately owned French airline Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) partnered with Air Ceylon, but this ended in 1976, leaving the carrier without a European partner. Now struggling to be profitable, Air Ceylon went bankrupt in 1979. Sri Lanka looked to move away from its colonial past and erase the name Ceylon from state institutions. This was achieved in 1972 when the country gained independence from Great Britain.
After only being grounded for several months following its bankruptcy, the Sri Lankan government relaunched Air Ceylon as SriLankan Airlines. According to Wikipedia, during its 32-year history, Air Ceylon operated a fleet that comprised the following aircraft:
President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as the Minister of Defence has revoked the extraordinary gazette issued on September 16, 2022 declaring ‘high security zones’ under the provisions of the ‘Official Secret Act,’ via another extraordinary gazette issued Saturday (01).
Accordingly, the declaration of the HSZ will be revoked with effect from October 01, 2022.
MIAP
The special 15 per cent interest scheme provided on fixed deposits for senior citizens will be terminated at all commercial banks, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said in a letter dated yesterday (30).
The letter has already been forwarded to all bank heads, informing them that the decision was taken as per a conclusion by the Cabinet on September 22.
MIAP
The price of petrol will drop from midnight today (01), as per a decision by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CEYPETCO).
Accordingly, the price of Octane 92 Petrol has dropped by Rs. 40, and will be sold for Rs. 410 per litre. Octane 95 Petrol has dropped by Rs. 30, to be sold for Rs. 510 per litre.
Meanwhile, the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC) has also decided to drop the petrol price simultaneous to the CEYPETCO’s decision.
MIAP
Argentina has been in an IMF programme since January 2022. It’s inflation has now gone up from 12% to 80%. It’s Central Bank policy rates have gone up from 7% to 75% under IMF supervision. People are starving and millions are unemployed. Poverty has quadrupled.
Sri Lanka has started talks with the IMF since April 2022. But, agreement has not been formally reached yet. As a pre-condition, Sri Lanka has made prices cost-reflective, and inflation has gone up from 18% to 70%. Central Bank Policy interest rates have been doubled, and Treasury interest rates have risen from 12% to 32%.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses are defaulting to the banks, and are crashing. Not a single dollar is coming into the country, and all investors are waiting for the IMF program, which is delayed.
Petrol is rationed and prices have doubled. Electricity prices have tripled. Millions of people don’t have money to even buy the basic food, and children are fainting in schools because they haven’t eaten.
Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe is daily saying “IMF is coming, IMF is coming”, and is not bothered about anything other than his stupid economic theories. Soon, it’ll be a case of “Bada Suddai, Leda Mala” (a folk catchphrase referring to an act in vain), and all our crazy 225 MPs are waiting for a miracle to happen with the IMF saving us at the nick of time.
In a way, maybe, it’s good that IMF hasn’t still come, because if and when they do, like in Argentina, when the inflation goes up to 80%, they will insist that the Central Bank pushes up the interest rates to 75%, and our idiotic Governor will gladly do that.
That’ll be the last nail in our coffins, literally.
A filling station located at Flower Road, Colombo has reportedly defrauded an amount of Rs. 500,000 daily from customers, investigations revealed.
Chief of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), Janaka Ratnayake yesterday (30) told media that the pump of the filling machine has mechanically been set up to drop 10 millilitres per every litre of fuel distributed to the customers.
Accordingly, the owner of the filling station was able to get away with Rs. 05 more with every litre issued, summing about Rs. 500,000 per day total.
The station in question has set up two pumps issuing petrol to drop a certain volume of fuel from each, and it has now been sealed by the PUCSL.
MIAP
Jagath Perera, Chairperson of Lanka Coal Company, has reportedly resigned from his post. His letter of resignation has been submitted to Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekara.
Despite the tender to procure coal being legitimately and transparently put forward, external parties continued to level criticism and exert pressure against the purchase, and the intolerance of such response has hence led to the resignation, Perera told the Minister.
He further claimed that certain parties wish to sabotage the importation of coal.
Perera’s resignation has been acknowledged by Minister Wijesekara, but no person has yet succeeded the vacant post at the Company.
MIAP
