Business

Eardley Perera Chairman Superbrands Council / Director Superbrands Sri Lanka (Pvt) Limited handing over the
Superbrands award to B.R.S.T (Lal) Edirisinghe, Chairman Edna Group of Companies at a ceremony held
at the company’s head office

Edna chocolates and candies have been awarded Superbrand status in the category of Foods by Superbrands - an independent authority on branding which promotes the discipline of branding, and pays tribute to exceptional brands all over the world.

As a highly acclaimed conglomerate that boasts of almost 60 years in business, Edna’s Superbrand status is a powerful endorsement of the organisations’ commitment to Brand Excellence. It’s unique brand promise and outstanding brand delivery has been the reason for the success over the years.

Edna commenced business way back in 1952 in the beautiful hamlet of Mawanella. Founded by E. B. R. Wimaladasa and his wife, the name “Edna” came about from the first letters of his name and his wife Nalini. The business commenced operations with the manufacturing of confectionery and supplying engineering components to small industries.

Edna creamy chocolates, have over the years, successfully captured the hearts and minds of chocolate lovers in every nook and corner of Sri Lanka, whilst enjoying the highest market share for the product. With its delicious taste and appealing flavours Edna chocolates are an all-time favourite amongst children as well as adults.

The product is what it is today because of its commitment to creating some of the finest chocolates using quality ingredients that is made to a special Swiss recipe, says a spokesperson for the Edna Group of Companies. The wide range includes Edna creamy chocolates, wafer chox & tempo with more exciting products to follow. Adding value to the business is the organisations’ dedicated marketing effort, effective island-wide distribution net-work and amicable trade relationships.

Expand
The company has also made extensive plans to expand its product range with some outstanding items in the pipeline. Customers can expect an exciting ‘sweet treat’ that promises to change the traditional belief of chocolate enthusiasts with a ‘delicious experience’ as never before. Edna Candies are popular among the masses primarily because they are affordable, and offer a delicious range. Manufactured in its state-of-the-art production plant, using high quality raw materials, the products are of international standard, and are the only candies in Sri Lanka to have been awarded Superbrand status.

Edna products are also exported to Bangladesh, Nepal, India, South East Asia and other countries.
The company also boasts of the largest Cocoa processing plant in Sri Lanka, which exports its finished products: Cocoa-liquor and Cocoa-butter to Cadbury India Ltd.

The A.S.P Group of Companies is offering at Rs 30,000 per perch for a limited period…

By Sarashi Samarasinghe
Q.What is this new project about?
A.February has been designated as the month for lovers. So our group of companies has decided on two new projects in relation to this great event. These are very safe investments that any newly married or to be married couples could afford to make for their future benefit.

The main focus of these two projects is to plan for the customer’s future. Our main office is situated in Borella. At present all our branches from Colombo to Homagama are extremely congested. The price of a perch of land has gone up to Rs.300000 in the city. One of our major projects at Meepe in Homagama, is situated 2 ¼ miles away from the Meepe town, though there are so many buses available to different routes from the Meepe town, in the Ingiriya main road.
For example there are buses that head to Ihala Bope, Padukka, Handapangoda, Horana along with many others which run on this route.
Clients who buy land here will only have to walk about 250 metres from the main road.

Q.What kind of facilities have you provided?
A.The land demarcated for housing, has been provided with all the basic facilities including pipe water and electricity.

Q. A perch How about the prices?
A. perch is priced at Rs.30,000. Buyers will never find a modernised place close to Colombo at such a low price.
To purchase the land, buyers should pay an advance of Rs.100,000, and the rest should be paid in installments of Rs.3700 per month for 15 years.
Otherwise the customers could also pay an advance of Rs.100,000 and could take a loan from either the State Mortgage Bank or the National Savings Bank (NSB.) Or they could take a loan from their Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) or the Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF).
If the customer could pay the whole amount within a year, the land could be bought without interest. There are two pieces of land for sale, measuring 10 perches and 15 perches respectively.

Q.Why do you say is it better to invest in land, rather than depositing money in a bank?
A.The price for land is now increasing. Hence it is more profitable to invest in land than depositing money in a bank. The other thing is that, at present the country has come close to the peace pathway. Hence in the near future, the price of land is going to be extremely high.
For example, if I would say, ten years back, lands which was in Malabe which sold for Rs.5000 to Rs.10000 a perch, have increased upto Rs.200,000 a perch today.
Hence, even if customers were to purchase land from anywhere else, it will be still be a good investment for them.

Q. What are the benefits of investing in land from the A.S.P. Group?
A.The A.S.P. group is the only company that lets the customers pay the full amount upto 15 years, so that the buyers could purchase their own piece of land in an easy repayment scheme.

Q.Apart from Meepe, what are the other choices available to your customers?
A. Apart from Meepe, our other project is located in Minuwangoda and in Udugampala.
The lands that are available in Minuwangoda are just six miles away from the Katunayake airport. The lands that are in Udugampala are just four miles away from Gampaha.
To purchase these lands too, one must follow the same procedure as in Meepe .
Land in the Gampaha area, affords one with the maximum transport benefits.
Apart from these two lands there are also lands available in Biyagama, Wattala, Kandana, Polgahawela and in Kosgama, where the customers could buy the land according to the amount which they could pay at the moment.

Q. What is the history of this prestigious institution?
A.A.S.P. Group of Companies was established 20 years ago, and our main goal is selling land. Today we are been one of the pioneer companies in the country in selling lands.
The reason behind this success is that I started this company on my own while I was employed as a teacher. I never received, even five perches of land from my parents, though I always thought positively.
So my request to all those reading this article, is to think positively, for a better future.
I used to first sell lands from Gothatuwa where those days a perch used to be Rs.1500. Now a perch in Gothatuwa is Rs.400,000.

Q. What is the confidence that you could give your customers regarding this kind of an investment?
A.The confidence that we could give is the trust that we have built with them over the past 20 years.
If you meet any of our customers of us, and see their smiling faces, you could imagine how successful they have been after purchasing a piece of land from us.
So what I have to emphasise is that, do not just waste time thinking. Instead, come here and experience the difference if you want to become successful in life.

Q. Are these lands only available for lovers?
A.Absolutely not. Anyone, even the married could purchase a piece of land from us. I would like to specially mention that house wives in particular should be allowed to express their opinions in this matter, because they are usually responsible for planning the future of their children more than their husbands.
The housewives should know to encourage their husbands to go and see these lands so that it will be a good investment for their children’s future, because there is no way of buying a perch of land for less as Rs.30,000 and this offer is only valid for one month.

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the nation’s number one integrated communications service provider, proudly announces the successful deployment of IPv6, the world’s latest Internet Protocol (IP) version in its Internet Service Provider (ISP) arm, SLTnet. As a dominant player in the internet market, this is part of the company commitment in take the country to greater heights and broader and bigger dimensions in the ICT arena by bringing home the latest futuristic technologies that are at the cutting-edge.

SLTnet is the first ISP in Sri Lanka to implement IPv6 services. This is a landmark event, which is in line with the company’s passion and commitment to cater to the internet users’ needs by providing fast access to information at anytime, anywhere and on any device via its Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture.

Currently all ISPs locally as well as globally provide services by address space for the IP version 4 (IPv4). Being the de-facto protocol for almost all the communication needs of today, the IPv4 address space is actually on the verge of being exhausted. The Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Asia Pacific forecasts 2011 to be the final day for making the last allocation.

As the internet technology is rapidly advancing in vast strides, SLT has taken this futuristic step in advance to provide a much better and streamlined internet experience to its users. IPv6 is a new version of IP protocol on which the Internet is based. IP version 6 (IPv6) is proclaimed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to be the saviour of the network world and in order to accomplish this objective IPv6 has been in a state of constant evolution since 1995 to bear rich fruit. This was possible due to the “IP Next Generation (IPng)” breakthrough by IETF in the early 1990s.

The IPv6 address constitutes of 128 bits whereas IPv4 is only 32 bits. Compared to the 4.4 billion addresses in IPv4, IPv6 has 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. The optimistic estimate would allow for 3,911,873,538,269,506,102 addresses per square meter of the surface of the planet earth. According to the way it will be allocated and used, the actual usable IPv6 address space can be much less than the absolute number of IP addresses it contains. For example, each Local Internet Registry (LIR) like SLT will get a “/32” minimum allocation while each end site will get a “/48” minimum allocation. This will provide ample opportunity to cater to the future IP address demand.

IPv6 has many advantages over IPv4, with the most prominent features being larger address space, stateless auto configuration, multicasting, fast routing, network layer inbuilt security including support for jumbograms, mobility and QoS. With the exception of the stateless auto-configuration, most of the features of IPv6 have been ported to IPv4. This makes deployment of IPv6 mostly dependent on address space exhaustion.

What IPv6 provides is the foundation and flexibility necessary to develop and deliver the applications and services that are required not only to meet future functionality, but also to fill the void by making available the critical capabilities that are missing in today’s portfolio of services. Thus in order to achieve the future potential of IPv6, one needs to build IPv6 routing and addressing strategies not only to focus on the transitional period over the next several years, but also to provide for greater long term functionality in the future.

Even though Sri Lanka’s hot favourite sport is cricket, there are an increasing number of rugby fans too, and people enjoy watching this game. The world famous Six Nations Rugby just kicked off and, if you head over to the Hilton Colombo’s colonial style Echelon Pub, you stand a chance to win a trip to Paris, by spending a minimum of Rs. 500. For every Rs. 500 spent, you will receive a coupon, which entitles you to take part in the grand raffle draw, to be held on March 21. The grand prize is 2 return air tickets to Paris, with complimentary accommodation for two, for six nights at the Hilton Paris.

The Six Nations Championship started in 1931. England and Scotland played the first Rugby Union International. After 12 years of occasional friendly matches between the two teams, the inaugural Home International Championship, comprising England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales was played in 1883. In 1910, France officially joined the competition, followed by Italy in 1931. The Echelon Pub, a place known to meet up with your friends and hang out, is an ideal venue to watch any game. There is a large screen you can watch the match on. Guests could also enjoy an extensive snack menu, whilst sipping their favourite drink.
Please call the Echelon Pub for more details and for match timings, on 2 544 644 ext. 2126.

UNICEF, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, recently invited several leading advertising agencies to provide suitable strategies and creative solutions to disseminate the concept of a Child Friendly School, and promote acceptance and desire to implement it at all levels, in the primary education system in the country.

In a keenly contested ‘Pitch’, Holmes Pollard and Stott emerged the winner. This is the second consecutive year that Holmes Pollard & Stott have won this coveted project. The Agency’s creative platform was based on the innovative use of the Sinhala and Tamil idiom across a variety of below-the-line media, including a 10 minute advocacy video.

The concept of a Child Friendly School (CFS) is based on the principles expressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child. A Child Friendly School considers education as every child’s right, and helps to monitor the rights and well-being of every child in the community. It acts in the interests of the ‘whole child’, which includes his or her health, nutrition and overall well-being. It also encourages the involvement of the entire community in improving the welfare of the child.

The Child Friendly School (CFS) model is based on five principles, namely, the child’s right to education and access to education, gender sensitivity, providing quality learning and effective learning, a healthy and protective environment, and the involvement of children’s families, as well as the local community.

While the Child Friendly School programme has already been implemented by the government through the Ministry of Education, it has not trickled down to all schools in the country, especially those in outlying areas Managing Director/CEO of Holmes Pollard and Stott, Pradeep Amirthanayagam stated. “This win demonstrates our key strengths in creating out-of-the-box solutions, and connecting with all strata of society, through our keen insights, into the minds of the Sri Lankan people, and effective use of the local idiom”.

Revival Physical Medicine Centre was incorporated in November 2008, by a team of professionals, headed by Dr.R.S.Jayatilaka, the founder chairman who is currently the Director & Consultant Medical Oncologist at Oasis Private Hospital.

It’s main objective is to provide world class health care services, specialising in Physiotherapy, Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine.
‘‘We are equipped with a modern state of the art facility, which meets the best global standards, in a 4200 square feet building with a specialised team of therapists in the fields of Physical and Sports Medicine. Our support staff have been trained under foreign therapists. They will treat you professionally, and will also assist you to smooth recovery and guide you to prevent of any further injury”, a spokesperson for the Centre said.

Treatments
The team includes Physiotherapists who are experts in the assessment of human movement and posture, and qualified to treat any condition that affects muscles, joints or nerves. Common problems that they deal with include:
Spinal Problems: Prolapsed discs, degeneration, sciatica, lumbago, stiff/painful neck, whiplash, joint dysfunction and referred arm and leg pain.

Joint Problems: Arthritis, injury, pain/swelling/stiffness in joints such as shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles.
Injuries to muscles, ligaments, cartilage and tendons and to work related conditions such as Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Tennis elbow and Golfer’s elbow

Sports Injuries: Strains, Sprains and bruising to soft tissue
Pain Management: Chronic pain treatment and ongoing pain.
Muscle Imbalance: Includes poor posture and core stability re-education.
After Surgery: Rehabilitation after orthopedic surgery eg hip and knee replacement or general physiotherapy after surgery.
Pelvic floor rehabilitation(EDMA) management.
Womens Health: Physiotherapy can help to re-educate bladder control. Prenatal &Post Natal programme.

Wasana Sampatha 1st prize goes to father of three

J. Rajapaksha from Tissamaharama, a father of three children, had always wanted to give his three children a good future and build a new house of their own, for them. The 742th draw of Wasana Sampatha lottery enabled him to fulfill his ambitions, by awarding him the first prize of two million rupees.Director of the National Lotteries Board, P. D. Pushpakumara is seen handing over the cheque to the winner while Tissamaharama National Lotteries Board Sales Agent K. Sirisena also joined in the occasion

Orange Electric as part of its CSR project ”Light for You Sight for Me” donated a Laser Indirect Ophthalmoscope for the laser treatment for paediatric patients, to the teaching Hospital - Karapitiya . Premature babies born with visual disabilities have to be treated wrapped and lying down which requires a special attachment to the Zeiss Laser system. This attachment valued at 1. 2 million was a much felt need in the area as it strengthens the infrastructure and equipment that facilitate the timely delivery of eye care in this region. Now with the gifting of this machine patients will be able to seek medical assistance at this locality instead of travelling to Colombo to seek treatment.

Addressing the gathering at the hospital Kamil Hussain CEO of Orange Electric said ” At a time when the economic climate calls for cut backs there are certain causes that cannot be sacrificed because they are important. The gift of sight is such. We at Orange Electric will continue our pledge towards the contribution to this CSR fund”Light for You Sight for Me”. In fact. Lighting up the world for someone in darkness is a meritorious act and through this CSR program many Sri Lankans would directly and indirectly be involved in this programme.

One of the salient features of this program is that all Orange Lighting Distributors, Dealers, Employees and Customers would be contributing to the ‘Light for You Sight for Me” fund. When ever someone buys or sells an Orange Electric bulb they contribute to the funding of this program through a percentage of the sales which goes into this fund. On average the fund contributes 7 to 8 lakhs a month towards this CSR commitment.”

World statistics indicate that every 5 seconds one person goes blind while a child goes blind every minute. In Sri Lanka, the statistics indicate that around 3000 children are born with eye disorders annually and if left untreated, this may lead to loss of sight. Recognising this fact, Orange Electric decided to come forward through its CSR program to assist those organisations that work towards the goal of preventive blindness