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Professor Subash Chawla, the senior-most Sri Lankan member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) was recently awarded the prestigious CIM Fellowship in recognition of his commitment to CIM and his contribution to marketing in the country. He is the first Sri Lankan to become an Honorary Fellow of CIM, which is the largest professional marketing body in the world. The Fellowship was awarded to him at a ceremony held at the BMICH on July 25.

Having joined the institution in 1964, Professor Chawla also has close links with other apex marketing bodies the world over, such as the Canadian Institute of Marketing and the Institute of Marketing and Management, India. He has lectured at the University of Singapore, Singapore Polytechnic Institute in Delhi and the University of Bihar.

Professor Chawla, who is a practitioner of Alternative Medicine, has written scholarly articles on various subjects as well as six books, two of which are on Tourism Marketing.

Vasana Wickremasena has been conferred membership of the International Media Lawyers Association (IMLA), based in the Oxford University, UK.

A journalist cum lawyer, Mr. Wickremasena was earlier Deputy News Editor of the Daily Mirror. He is now Executive Director of The Centre for Integrated Communication Research and Advocacy, which engages in applied research relating to the mass media and other human communication processes in the context of national development.

He is also an academic in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty of the Open University of Sri Lanka., a media trainer for BBC World Service Trust in Maldives and Sri Lanka, the Internews Network and the Media Research and Training Centre of the Jaffna University. He is the Convenor of the Code of Ethics Review Committee of the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka.

Mr. Wickremasena has been the recipient of several international and national awards and fellowships, including the Commonwealth Press Union’s Harry Brittain Fellowship, and twice won special mention as ‘The Young Reporter of the Year’, at the Annual awards for Excellence in Journalism of the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka. He was the first ever Complaints Officer (English Language Press) of the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka.

Nilakshi Parndigamage recently graduated with Distinction (B.A. Pre-law with a major in International Politics) from Yale University in Connecticut USA.

Nilakshi received the prestigious David Everett Chandler Award at the graduation ceremony. The award recognised her academic achievements, public service interests in Sri Lanka and in the USA, and her work at the UN Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, assisting the legal team prosecuting the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

During her time at Yale, Nilakshi represented the University at the Law and Society Symposium held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004, presenting a paper on War and Civil Liberties in a post-9/11 world. The same year she was one of 30 students selected from all over the US to be named as a Senior Fellow of the Humanity in Action Organisation, based in New York. As a part of this fellowship she travelled to Washington D.C., Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam attending seminars and meeting with prominent humanitarian workers, lawyers, journalists and politicians.

During her time at Yale, Nilakshi raised over Rs.11,000,000 for Sri Lankan victims of the tsunami through campus relief efforts and benefit concerts. As the President of the Buddhist Students Association, she organised Yale's first ever over-night pirith chanting ceremony in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami.

Nilakshi, who attended Yale on a full scholarship from the University, has received additional grants from Yale to pursue internships once again at the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague and in Bosnia in the coming year.

Dr. Sarath Matararaachchi has been nominated for the 2006 Melbourne Awards for his work with Architects Without Frontiers and the City of Melbourne, in helping to rebuild areas of Sri Lanka devastated by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

After the tsunami, members of Architects Without Frontiers and the City of Melbourne visited the southern province of Sri Lanka to assess how best to use money donated by Melburnians.

Dr. Matararaachchi, was part of this team, and played a key role in determining how to best rebuild the community. Some of the most significant projects to be carried out included the establishment of two mobile libraries and the redevelopment of the North Dickwella School.

Lord Mayor John So lauded Dr. Matararaachchi as “an immensely dedicated and committed individual, who is making a significant impact in Sri Lanka and continuing to further the global recognition of Melbourne”.