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Ritzbury Roccoa brought the excitement of world football to life as the winners of its highly anticipated football promotion were presented with authentic jerseys personally signed by two of the sport’s most celebrated icons, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The special presentation took place recently at Havelock City Mall, marking the culmination of the Ritzbury Roccoa ‘Own Your GOAT’ Promotion. The campaign gave Sri Lankan football fans the extraordinary opportunity to win an authentic FIFA 2026 Argentina jersey signed by Lionel Messi, alongside an authentic FIFA 2026 Portugal jersey signed by Cristiano Ronaldo.

Following the conclusion of the promotion, Ramesh Carvalho was selected as the winner of the Lionel Messi-signed Argentina jersey, while Pasindu Anjana Wickramasinghe was selected as the winner of the Cristiano Ronaldo-signed Portugal jersey. The two winners received their prizes at this special event, celebrating their remarkable wins and the passion for football that brought fans together throughout the campaign.

The Messi-signed Argentina jersey is a particularly significant piece of football memorabilia, with the original campaign highlighting its connection to the FIFA World Cup 2026 and Messi’s highly anticipated final World Cup appearance. The authentic Portugal jersey, signed by Cristiano Ronaldo, added another iconic piece of football history to the promotion, giving fans the opportunity to take home extraordinary memorabilia associated with the game.

CBL Foods International Ltd., General Manager Marketing Niluksha Bastiansz said: ‘At Ritzbury, we recognise the incredible passion that sport inspires among fans around the world. Beyond the excitement of competition, sport has the power to inspire through the passion, dedication, discipline and commitment of those who have reached the very top of their game.

‘Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are two such icons who have inspired millions of fans around the world through their extraordinary journeys and enduring commitment to football. As the FIFA World Cup 2026 captured the attention of football fans globally, we were delighted to give two lucky fans the opportunity to own a piece of football history through these iconic signed jerseys.

Through this promotion, we look forward to celebrating the spirit of the game and the remarkable journeys of two football legends, while sharing that excitement with Sri Lankan fans.’

In addition to the two signed jerseys, the campaign also featured 300 customised jerseys as giveaway prizes, providing even more fans with the opportunity to celebrate their love for the game.

With the presentation of the Messi and Ronaldo-signed jerseys, Ritzbury Roccoa has concluded a campaign that was designed to create memorable experiences for Sri Lankan football fans, combining the excitement of the world’s biggest football stage with the opportunity to own extraordinary pieces of football memorabilia.

HNB PLC has launched Supiri Weera Jumbo, the first cartoon series produced by a Sri Lankan bank, to mark the 35th anniversary of HNB Singithi, the country’s first branded children’s savings account.

The series premiered at Scope Cinemas, Havelock City Mall, Colombo 05 on 29 September 2026, and available on HNB’s official YouTube channel from 1 October, with a new episode released every week thereafter.

The first season comprises 10 episodes and brings to life Jumbo, HNB’s long-standing mascot, associated with the iconic pink till, in the role of a superhero.

The concept, design and plot were developed by HNB employees, six of whom also lent their voices to the characters and the series song. Suneth Chithrananda (Chuti malli) voices Jumbo, veteran voice actor Athula Jayasinghe voices the main villain Rumbo, and Gaminda Priyaviraj (Podi Malli) voices the villain Dadonis. Visual X served as animation director and DC Productions handled sound and dubbing direction.

The series’ storylines introduce values such as friendship, loyalty and perseverance to a young audience, using Jumbo’s role as a superhero to show children that good things come through patience and steady effort, much like the habit of saving.

HNB Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications, Upul Adikari said: ‘HNB Singithi has been part of the savings habits of Sri Lankan families for 35 years. Supiri Weera Jumbo carries the values Singithi has always encouraged, such as patience, discipline and consistency, into a format children can relate to and engage with every day. The story reflects a message we want children to take with them, that goodness wins slowly and steadily, much like the habit of saving. Producing the series with our own people was a deliberate choice, and it gives HNB a long-term platform to engage young customers and their families beyond the branch and the classroom.’

HNB Singithi offers savings accounts for children from birth, and over the past 35 years, the Bank has established more than 160 school savings units across the island, through which HNB branch teams conduct savings activities in schools.

The launch comes ahead of Singithi Savings Month in October, which HNB holds between World Children’s Day and World Thrift Day to help children understand the value of saving.

Supiri Weera Jumbo marks a first for the Sri Lankan banking sector, extending HNB Singithi’s 35-year role in children’s savings from the classroom into the homes of Sri Lankan families and giving the Bank a lasting channel to reach the next generation of young savers.

The John Keells Foundation and the Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams recently launched the eighth edition of Artist Spotlight launched on 16 September 2026 at Level 23 showcasing Channa Ekanayake’s exhibition ‘What Lives Between.’

The exhibition will remain on display until 30 November 2026.

Some stories are carried in words. Others survive in gestures, images and fragments of memory passed quietly between generations. Channa Ekanayake’s What Lives Between, curated by Kasun Jayamanne, looks towards these less visible forms of inheritance, drawing on Sinhala folk poetry and the lived experiences of Sri Lankan women to consider how culture continues to shape identity.

The exhibition brings Ekanayake’s distinctive contemporary practice into a setting where art becomes part of the wider Cinnamon Life experience. His work draws from Sri Lanka’s architectural, spiritual and natural environments, translating familiar forms into compositions shaped by geometry, colour, rhythm and restraint.

Explaining the ideation behind What Lives Between, artist Ekanayake says, ‘The process began with an interest in memories that outlast the people, places and moments that shaped them. Sinhala folk poetry carries many of these memories, particularly stories and experiences connected to women that have travelled through generations. I wanted to explore that inheritance through a contemporary visual language, allowing the familiar to become something that can be seen and considered anew.’

That exploration extends a practice developed across more than two decades. His early solo exhibition Dwellings in 2001 established an interest in architecture and inhabitation, while later works including Silence of the Blue and BODHI explored spirituality, environment and cultural symbolism. International presentations such as Islanded at Aicon Contemporary in New York further expanded his engagement with Sri Lanka’s visual and cultural landscape.

What Lives Between continues this trajectory while turning its focus towards cultural memory and Sri Lankan womanhood. Folk poetry serves as a point of departure rather than a literal source, allowing Ekanayake to simplify and reconfigure familiar references into a visual language that invites interpretation.

Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts Colombo Hotels Senior Vice President and Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams General Manager Kamal Munasinghe said: ‘Art has a powerful ability to create connections, particularly when it becomes part of an environment where people can encounter it naturally. Artist Spotlight allows us to bring Sri Lankan artistic expression into the City of Dreams experience while giving artists an opportunity to engage audiences who may encounter their work for the first time.’

That philosophy places Artist Spotlight within a broader commitment to creating meaningful encounters between artists and audiences. The initiative gives Sri Lankan artists a platform to reach new audiences, collectors and art enthusiasts, while positioning City of Dreams as a living gallery where local artistic expression can be experienced alongside the hospitality and lifestyle environment.

JKH Head of CSR Carmeline Jayasuriya said: ‘Supporting artists is about enhancing space for creativity to be seen, experienced and valued by diverse audiences. Through Artist Spotlight, we hope to contribute to a stronger creative ecosystem in Sri Lanka while encouraging conversations around the stories, identities and experiences that shape our culture. As in the case of all our art-based activities, John Keells Foundation’s aim is to provide a platform that provides wider opportunities to the artist while promoting cultural understanding and appreciation through the amazing artistic talent of Sri Lanka.’

At its heart, What Lives Between is an invitation to look beyond what is immediately visible. Ekanayake’s work brings together poetry, memory and visual form to consider what survives, changes and continues to connect generations, giving audiences an opportunity to encounter a distinctly Sri Lankan story through a contemporary artistic lens.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce yesterday said it is expanding its work to strengthen business continuity across Sri Lanka’s private sector, with the latest in a continuing series of Business Continuity Management (BCM) workshops completed this week.

The work directly supports the National Disaster Management Plan 2023-2030, which identifies the Ceylon Chamber as a lead implementing entity responsible for helping private-sector businesses prepare and implement Business Continuity Plans for disaster recovery and sustainability.

The two-day workshop conducted through the Chamber’s Centre for SMEs brought businesses through the key elements of Business Continuity Management, organisational resilience and disaster preparedness, with a focus on maintaining critical operations and recovering when disruptions occur.

The national plan recognises that keeping private-sector manufacturing, production, services and employment functioning during a disaster is an important part of national preparedness. It specifically calls for businesses to develop contingency plans and integrate them with wider disaster management structures.

This gives business continuity a significance beyond individual companies. A disruption to one business can affect employees, suppliers, customers and other businesses across a supply chain, making preparedness an important part of maintaining economic activity when a disaster or other major disruption occurs.

The workshop uses an ISO 22301:2019-based BCM curriculum developed under the World Food Program’s Disaster and Climate Resilience Project. It was facilitated by Bandula Wickramarachchi, an ISO-certified BCM trainer specialising in Business Continuity Management and organisational resilience.

Through its Centre for SMEs, the Chamber is continuing to conduct BCM workshops and capacity-building programs for corporates and SMEs. The programs are designed to help businesses identify critical functions, assess potential disruptions and establish arrangements for responding to and recovering from them.

I recently read through a series of awe-inspiring works, beginning with the insightful analysis in ‘My View’ by Dr. W. A. Wijewardena, which directed me toward empirical research of Tissa Jayawardena and late Prof. Ian Stevenson. Their collective endeavors represent a profound attempt to bring rebirth closer to empirical comprehension, bridging metaphysical reality with parameters perceived through our primary senses. Their methodology rests upon rigorous logic and observable outcomes.

Classical Dhamma teachings consistently emphasise the extreme rarity of attaining a human existence. This truth is famously illustrated in the Chiggala Sutta (where the Buddha compares human birth to a blind turtle surfacing once every century through a single wooden yoke floating atop a stormy ocean). The Buddha explained that within this microscopic window, escaping Samsara remains even more vital and extraordinarily difficult.

Having said that , for me still the most compelling unanswered dilema is ‘an observation hitherto uncalculated and unresearched in modern empirical studies’ lies in the unprecedented ‘Population Growth of the Human Species’ over the last three centuries.

Despite catastrophic wars, historical pandemics, and widespread upheavals claiming millions of lives, censuses confirm that human population has expanded exponentially, from under a billion in the 19th Century to over eight billion in 2026.

This demographic reality confirms that a vast number of consciousness are attaining human birth in this era, made possible primarily through one pivotal factor: growing global awareness of the Dhamma, the timeless teachings of the Buddha.

It can be then argued that this expanding spiritual awareness is directly linked to the broad dissemination of the Noble Truth, driven by dedicated practitioners and wisdom seekers across continents. Especially, during the 19th to 20th Centuries, this sacred trust has been carried forward with steadfast devotion pioneered by the Maha Sangha.

As the Dhamma spreads, wisdom compounds and it cultivates widespread mental states (Kusala Chitta) and ethical awareness on a planetary scale, creating Kusala Karma (Karmic Conditions) for a greater volume of beings to secure human rebirth. Consequently, our world has transformed into an ever-more fertile sanctuary to practice the Noble Eightfold Path and strive for liberation from Samsara.

This vast, accessible landscape of spiritual opportunity is the greatest wealth ‘Generation Alpha’ and ‘Generation Beta’ will ever possess.

(The author’s academic background includes computer science and business economics in the USA. He is formerly an engineer, and Ex-MP in Sri Lanka, and could be reached at [email protected])

Notes:

(1) Chiggala (Ciggala) Sutta , found in the Pali Canon as SN 56.47 and SN 56.48 in the Samyutta Nikaya is a short discourse by the Buddha .

(2) Global Population Data , under 1 billion to 1.6 billion in the 19th century .

1.6 billion to 6.1 billion in the 20th century .

6.1 billion at dawn of the 21st century , to over 8 billion today in 2026 .

(3) ‘Generation Alpha’ includes people born from 2010 to 2024 , while ‘Generation Beta’ covers those born from 2025 to 2039 .

(4) Dr WA Wijewardena’s Article ” Tissa Jayawardena’s newest book on rebirth: Foundation for future research”

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) yesterday said it has reached an official agreement with Government to continue to target quarterly headline inflation of 5%, with an accountability margin of plus or minus two percentage points, for the next three years.

The new Monetary Policy Framework Agreement (MPFA) was signed on 1 October by President and Finance Minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake and CBSL Governor Dr. P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, under Section 26 of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act, No. 16 of 2023. It was published in Extraordinary Gazette No. 2508/28 the same day.

Inflation will be measured as the average of the year-on-year changes in the monthly Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI) over each calendar quarter.

The target is carried over unchanged from the first MPFA, signed in October 2023. The Act requires the target to be reviewed every three years, or sooner in exceptional circumstances. The CBSL said its review weighed the country’s economic structure, historical and empirical evidence, the credibility of the framework, stakeholder views and international practice, and that the Finance Ministry accepted its recommendation.

The renewal comes as inflation runs well above the target. Headline CCPI inflation held at 8% in September, unchanged from August and above the 7% upper bound for a third consecutive month, while core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, rose to 5.4% from 5.1%.

The CBSL has projected that headline inflation will remain in high single digits through the first quarter of 2027 before easing towards the target. It said it remains committed to achieving the target through forward-looking, data-driven policy

decisions.