The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has granted approval to increase electricity tariffs with effect from 1st  April .

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) requested a 13.56% electricity tariff revision  for the second quarter of this year.

The revision announced by the PUCSL for  domestic consumers:

0–30 units category, electricity tariffs will rise by 4.3%, 

31–60 units category, tariffs will rise by 6.9%, 

61–90 units category, tariffs will rise by 6.9%, 

91–120 units category, tariffs will rise by 7.2%, 

Above 180 units, electricity tariffs will rise by  25.3% 

The PUCSL has decided not to increase electricity tariffs for religious and charitable institutions that consume below 180 units monthly and a  9.6% increase for institutions that consume above 180 units.

Ectricity tariffs for the general and household consumer categories has been increased by 8%, while the electricity tariff increase for the industrial sector is 8.7%,  the increase in tariff for government institutions is 14.4%.

Before Sunday, Mumbai Indians had never chased down a 220-plus target in their previous seven attempts. MI had never won their opening game of the IPL since 2012. On day two of IPL 2026,  MI broke two jinxes as they chased down 221 in 19.1 overs to begin their season with a comfortable six-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders. Rohit Sharma  wound back the clock, smashing 78 off 38 balls, while Ryan Rickelton thumped 81 off 43, the duo adding 148 runs for the opening wicket off 71 balls.

That KKR were coming into this opening game severely depleted on the bowling front was known. The extent of it was visible on Sunday night with Vaibhav Arora and Blessing Muzarabani toothless, Varun Chakravarthy ineffective and Sunil Narine a shadow of his former self.

At the halfway mark, KKR might have been happy reaching 220 for 4, their second-highest score against MI in the IPL. Ajinkya Rahane,  who at the toss said that he had “never seen so much of grass at Wankhede”, scored 67 off 40 balls while Angkrish Raghuvanshi, another Mumbai lad, made 51 off 29 as KKR breached the 220 mark. But against a KKR unit missing several of their frontline seamers, MI barely had any hiccups, completing the highest-successful IPL chase at the Wankhede with five balls to spare.

It was a typical Rohit innings that Wankhede has witnessed so many times, laced with some of the most pristine shots. He was on 12 off eight at one stage, but once in, he lit up Mumbai like only he can. Coming into the game, he had a strike rate of less than 100 against Varun in T20s. So, what did he do? He lofted the spinner inside-out over covers first ball and then lifted him for six the next ball. By the time the powerplay was done, Rohit had raced to a 23-ball fifty, his fastest in the IPL and MI’s chase was on course.

They raced to 80 in the first six, past 100 in 8.1 overs and by the time Rohit fell, thanks to a lovely catch by Anukul Roy running back from mid-off, MI’s required rate had gone below nine, which at the start of the innings was above 11 an over.

Oil prices have surged to their highest level in nearly two weeks amid escalation on multiple fronts of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose more than 3 percent on Monday morning to top $116 a barrel.

The latest climb took the global benchmark to its highest point since March 19, when it briefly touched $119 a barrel.

The surge came after Iran said it was prepared for a US ground invasion, with the speaker of the country’s parliament warning that Tehran was waiting for the arrival of US troops to “set them on fire” and “punish” their regional allies.

Tehran’s warning came as the conflict deepened over the weekend, with the Iranian-backed Houthis launching missiles at Israel for the first time in the war, and Israel expanding its invasion of southern Lebanon.

Asia’s main stock indexes fell sharply in morning trading, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI both down more than 4 percent as of 1:30 GMT.

Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israel war has disrupted about one-fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies, plunging the world into its biggest energy crisis in decades.

Oil prices have risen nearly 60 percent since the start of the war, driving up fuel prices worldwide and forcing numerous countries to adopt emergency measures to conserve energy.

Analysts have warned that oil prices are likely to keep rising unless maritime traffic returns to normal levels in the strait.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure if Tehran does not relinquish its stranglehold on the waterway by a deadline of April 6.

Trump, who on Thursday extended his deadline by 10 days, has proposed a 15-point plan for ending the war with Iran and insisted that the two sides are making progress towards a deal in indirect talks being mediated by Pakistan.

Tehran has flatly rejected Trump’s plan and proposed its own terms for a ceasefire, including war reparations and recognition of Iran’s right to control the strait.

Greg Newman, CEO of Onyx Capital Group, which began as an oil derivatives trading house, said energy consumers were only beginning to feel the true fallout of the turmoil.

“Physical oil moves around the world in loading cycles, and Europe has taken around three weeks to really start feeling the effects of the oil shortage,” Newman told Al Jazeera.

“Brent is starting to reflect the reality, and we think it’s a steady rise from here towards $120 and beyond.”

Newman said the scale of the disruption had yet to be fully appreciated.

“No one in the market has ever seen the outages we are now suffering from – physical premiums are the highest ever. There is still a sense that the macro world is not taking this seriously enough, but it is worse than anything that has come before it,” he said.

“The reality will come out in the economic numbers over the coming months.”

While Iran has been allowing a growing number of transits by ships that are not aligned with the US or Israel, traffic remains a fraction of pre-war levels.

On Saturday, Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar announced that Tehran had agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass the strait in what he described as a “meaningful step toward peace”.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said last week that Iran had granted an unspecified number of Malaysian vessels permission to clear the strait.

Seven non-Iranian vessels passed the strait on Thursday, up from five on Wednesday and four on Tuesday, according to maritime intelligence firm Windward.

Before the start of the war on February 28, the strait saw an average of 120 daily transits, according to Windward.

[Aljazeera]