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M.S. de Silva, Lanka’s first (successful) journalist/entrepreneur Source:Island The 20th death anniversary of M.S. de Silva, the only Lankan journalist in my memory, who left journalism and carved out a business empire, fell two days ago. His wife, Karuna, asked me to write something about this ever smiling man, always in his trademark whites, who never forgot his friends whatever heights he scaled. Immensely proud of his southern roots, he was one of the many entrepreneurs in this country, born south of the Bentara river, who made a name for himself as a business baron. This, like others of his ilk, he did with very little seed capital of his own, making and losing a fortune but never demonstrating the slightest trace of bitterness. When I was made the editor of what was then the Ceylon Daily News in the early eighties, he rang to congratulate me and tell me, ...