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Dialog donates Rs. 25 m for disabled soldiers

Sri Lanka’s flagship telecommunications services provider, Dialog Telekom, paid tribute to the nation’s war heroes, presenting Rs. 25 million to the Ministry of Defence in support of the Ranaviru Retreat Centre in Attidiya. The presentation was made by Dialog Telekom Group Chief Executive, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, to Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Dialog Telekom PLC Group Chief Executive, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya and Dialog Telekom PLC Authorised Distributor, Thivanka Jayakody present the Rs. 25 million cheque to Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at the Ranaviru Retreat.

The funds donated were drawn from Dialog’s pledge to donate Rs. 100 per each ‘Ranaviru Recharge Card’ towards the welfare of war heroes.

The Ranaviru Retreat, a brainchild of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, is an expansive centre for disabled armed forces personnel. The centre, which is still under construction, will provide state-of-the-art treatment facilities to assist the mental and physical empowerment of seriously disabled service personnel.

The Ranaviru Retreat will initially house 250 servicemen and women. Dialog’s contribution will be utilised alongside other donations towards the completion of the complex.

The Defence Secretary, visited the site on Thursday and inspected the progress of work and gave recommendations for the ongoing initiatives.

He also thanked Dialog Telekom for its contribution towards the development of the complex, and for the company’s support towards the welfare of disabled service personnel.

Dialog Telekom launched its ‘Ranaviru Recharge Card’ in February 2009, and the pledged sums have now grown to Rs. 30 million. The company donated Rs. 5 million to the Api Wenuwen Api Fund earlier this year.

SLAHAB founder president receives accolade

Beautician and Founder President of SLAHAB Nayana Karunaratne was awarded the Organization Mondial Coiffure (OMC - World Federation of Hairdressers), Prestige Club Medal of Distinction.

She is a member of the OMC Board of Directors and is also the President for the Asia zone. “I believe it is a great achievement not just personally, but also to the local beauty industry,” she said.

The OMC Prestige Club founded a year ago is an exclusive gathering of salons worldwide.

Their activities include creating collections for seasons and also organizing competitions for hairstylist. Being one of the largest events of the international fashion calendar, this was held at the Concorde Lafayette hotel, Paris and the collections for Spring/Summer 2010 had also been launched on the same day.

“These events are not simply about glamour. They are good learning platforms,” said Karun- aratne.

Before long, the Sri Lankans are about to have the opportunity of witnessing an event of similar magnitude where top beauticians from all over the world will gather - OMC Asia Cup Open 2010 which will be held on March 7-8 at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel.

CBL bags 10 brand excellence awards:

Munchee wins Golds for product brand and local brand

Munchee Biscuits, the flagship brand of Ceylon Biscuit Ltd (CBL) again triumphed at SLIM Brand Excellence 2009 winning two Golds for the top awards - Product Brand of the Year and Local Brand of the Year. CBL has been successful at Brand Excellence since 2002 and emerged winner this year too - with 10 awards that demonstrate the excellence of the Company and its brands.

Munchee achieved Silver Awards for Export Brand of the Year as well CSR Brand of the Year.

Meanwhile, CBL also won Bronze Awards - product brand of the year and local brand of the year for Tiara Cakes, innovative brand of the year for Ritzbury chocolate and best new entrant for Munchee chocolate Marie.

The line up of awards were the Brand Champion Awards for the Year’s product brand and local brand presented to CBL’s C, Theja Peiris for having driven Munchee’s success in taking it on its rapid pathway to brand excellence.

Theja’s Brand Champion win for the second successive year was apt recognition of marketing and brand management prowess of CBL and its marketers.

Group Director and Head of Marketing and Sales Nandana Wickramage said, “Our passion, dedication and attention to detail in competing in the marketplace has brought us rich rewards when we showcased our success to the Brand Excellence judges.

Our innovative marketing and promotional strategies and the dramatic sales volumes increases achieved, spoke for itself.

“That’s how we have been able to win Brand Excellence awards year after year.”

NTB wins Gold at NBQSA

From left: Software Development of Nations Trust Bank Assistant Manager Kushan Tantrige, Nations Trust Bank Director/Chief Executive Officer Saliya Rajakaruna, Business Solutions Senior Manager Dinesh Thomas and Software Development and MIS Manager Buddhika Seelantha.

The IT Department at Nations Trust Bank (NTB) PLC gained recognition by winning the Gold Award in the In House Applications Category at the National Best Quality Sotfware Awards (NBQSA) competition at the Water’s Edge.

The Awards ceremony is an annual ceremony organized by the British Computer Society Sri Lanka (BCSSL) Section. The competition serves to showcase and benchmark Sri Lankan ICT products, which fulfils a much needed requirement of the software industry in this highly competitive globalized economic structure. The competition has been conducted by the BCS Sri Lanka Section since 1998 to recognize and honour significant technological developments in the software industry.

NTB PLC Chief Information Officer Lasith Nanayakkara said, “We are delighted in being recognized for the iApply V2 Module which was developed by our in-house development team.” He said, “The iApply V2 comprises a three-tier web based application with different areas for lodging of Personal Loan and Credit Card application and for the Credit Operations Department of the bank to manage the application processing.

The iApply was launched in 2004 and has undergone interim modifications to support the dynamic requirements of the Business. The module is used by the Credit Operations Department of the bank, to process Credit Card and Loan applications”

The Bank realigned its strategic focus in 2008 to simplify banking and maximize customer convenience. In keeping with this strategy, the Bank has realigned its systems and procedures to ensure that it allows for speed and flexibility, along with simplicity and convenience.