International Women’s Day falls on 8th of March and hence the theme of this issue, Celebrating Women! Hi!! celebrates trailblazer Kavindya Thennakoon, youth activist and humanitarian,...

April is a month we Sri Lankans celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and let me wish each and everyone of our dear readers and advertisers, Suba Aluth Avuruddak Wewa!

Twenty twenty three! A milestone year for the Hi!! Magazine as we celebrate our 20th Anniversary! Absolutely delighted that we have made it through two decades of highs and lows - not only have we survived our many challenges but have maintained our premier position as the most sought after society magazine in Sri Lanka!

As we stand on the cusp of celebrating 20 years, we dedicate this issue to the Diaspora who have been our staunchest supporters since we hit the stands almost 2 decades ago. In this issue, we feature events from Canada, Netherlands, Australia, United Kingdom and the USA which goes to show that Hi!! Magazine does indeed have a global reach. For those especially in the Diaspora who wish to subscribe to the digital copy of Hi!! Magazine you can download it from the APP store or Magzter.

As the world spins from one crisis to another, the wheels of industry stoically turn and we at the Hi!! Magazine have been busy covering various launches and other events to bring you the best that our island has to offer in terms of entertainment.

After a hiatus of four months we are back on the stands. Feeling the pain of the masses and out of respect for everyone severely affected by the crisis we refrained from publishing our June issue. However as the wheels of industry need to turn we are proud to present our August issue with MasterChef Australia contestant Dulan Hapuarachchi as our coverboy. Dulan wowed the judges and audiences with a combination of Sri Lankan delights and his suave personality. A catastrophic disaster with waffles saw him voted off the show well before his time. In an exclusive interview with Hi!! Magazine Dulan talks about his life changing experience as a MasterChef contestant. 

The Hi!! Magazine is known for featuring interesting people and we deliver on this issue by talking to Shan de Silva, our Cover boy, who threw caution to the winds as he spoke of his journey identifying as non binary and the liberating experience of being gender fluid.

In this issue we feature an amazing group of women, super achievers who are trailblazers as we celebrate International Women’s Day on the 8th of March! They have launched cutting edge businesses, shown the world how to be top entrepreneurs in a man’s world, to be socially responsible and survive 
 childhood sexual abuse. These are an eclectic mix of role models who shatter glass ceilings!

Our cover boy is a Superstar! Why? Not only did the Sri Lankan- Italian designer Andrea Brocca’s graduate collection have the world’s fashion press swooning over him, but he happens to hold the rare title of being hailed as the World’s Youngest Couturier by Guinness World Records! This young prodigy had dressed Lady Gaga for the cover of Billboard magazine amongst
other celebrities. Now making a mark in this highly competitive industry, Andrea at 26 is being compared to the genius Alexander McQueen!

As we enter a new chapter in the history of the Hi!! magazine with our 101st issue, I am yet again grateful that with a never ending global pandemic coupled with on and off lockdowns at home and abroad, we were able to find amazing content for a riveting issue full of interesting features and fashion. In these hard times, we were thrilled to find such inspirational role models - trail blazers who followed their hearts, crushing obstacles on the way to achieve world wide success and recognition!

Surreal. 
That’s what I feel as I write my 100th editorial for this milestone issue. And infinitely grateful. 
Grateful for the challenge and opportunity offered to me back in 1999 to be the Editor of the new lifestyle magazine. It’s been two decades since the initial talks and 18 years since the first issue of Hi!! magazine was published in 2003. Back then, we had no idea how long the magazine would survive or in the first instance, how it would be received by the Sri Lankan reader.

So after almost an year on, we are back where we started in March 2020: locked down! And staring squarely in the face of an impending third wave of Covid-19 with its dreaded new mutations!

Greetings to all our loyal readers, both here and worldwide in this month when we celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year! A ray of light is in sight, now that the vaccination programme is well underway. We sincerely hope that everything will be back to normal soon!

Welcome to 2021, a brand new year which we hope will be quite different from the last one! We are just able to glimpse the silver lining with a vaccine for the dreaded Covid-19 about to be rolled out in Sri Lanka. Let’s hope the mass vaccination programme will enable us all to get back to life as we knew it and a sense of normalcy.

2020 will be remembered in the annals of history as ‘The Year that Never Was’. It was far more devastating than ‘Annus Horribilis’, the earlier definition for the most calamitous year. There is nothing to compare the catastrophe 2020 turned out to be!

We Sri Lankans are a resilient lot. We have faced terrorism, the tsunami and most recently the Easter Sunday attacks and come out stronger. We are one of the few lucky countries where the casualties of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic is in double digits, thanks to the efficiency of those that make the decisions. Sadly, as I write, a new cluster has emerged just when the country was getting back to a new normal.

Taking the new normal in our stride we are proud to present the latest issue of the Hi!! with Nethra Tilakumara as our covergirl. Part of the next gen of Brit Lankans, dusky beauty Nethra is making her mark in the British entertainment industry. As a child, she starred alongside Angelica Houston in the cult kids’ movie Horrid Henry. More recently she has appeared in BBC shows such as Our Girl and played one of the lead roles as a bisexual Asian woman in the hit TV show Flatmates.

When we danced our way into 2020, that faraway day at the dawn of a brand New Year, did we ever expect this debacle to happen? Then Covid-19, Lockdown, the New Normal were words foreign to us. Now having lived life under all three, we are hopefully limping back to life, hoping for normalcy in a wholly different world.

When the first edition of Hi!! Magazine came out in 2003, with just a few of us in the editorial staff, we had no clue that we would make such a dramatic difference in the publishing world. No such lifestyle magazine was in existence in Sri Lanka, though many aimed at women alone were!

Celebrating the achievements of Sri Lankan women and men the world over, continues to be a reason d’etre of Hi!!. This issue is no exception as we feature our covergirl Kumi Jinadasa. An engineer who works as a mission manager at the Canadian Space Agency, Kumi has seen her career soar to galactic heights. Combining bodybuilding for which she has won numerous awards in Canada, Kumi is the perfect role model who demonstrates that combining passion, determination and a hunger for success can help you literally reach for the stars.

The definition of beauty can often be subjective and contentious and no one knows this better than our covergirl in this issue Sevmi Fernando, the 2nd runner up in the Miss Italy 2019 pageant. Sevmi, born and bred in Italy and of Sri Lankan descent weathered a storm of controversy over her eligibility to represent the modern Italian woman.

With more and more women coming to the fore in all industries we are particularly thrilled to have as our covergirl the dynamic Linda Speldewinde. Identifying a niche in the market for creative personnel in Sri Lanka, Linda founded the Academy of Design which has become a hotbed for creating design talent.

In the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks on Sri Lankan soil after a decade, the country is slowly limping towards recovery. We are grateful to the combined efforts of our valiant security forces in reigning in the terrorist threat so quickly and efficiently. The need of the hour now, is to support each other through these tough and turbulent economic times.

Our coverboy Selva Rasalingam is a dashing actor of Sri Lankan and English parentage. Born and bred in the UK, Selva is a graduate from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and is known for playing roles in Hollywood blockbusters The Mummy, Skyfall and Prince of Persia amongst others. He has also appeared in a gamut of roles on TV, film, theatre and radio ranging from Dr Who and Eastenders to Midnight’s Children and The Riots.

Sri Lanka’s numero uno lifestyle magazine, the Hi!!, embarks on its 16th year. We have come a long way since our start in 2003 and as we go forward we are embracing change. Over the years we have striven to give our readers the best and to celebrate our momentous milestone of turning 16, we have created a new look which we hope you will all enjoy.

Our covergirl in this issue is Brit Sri Lankan model and former Miss UK International Laura Shields. Cutting an arresting figure with brains and beauty in equal measure, Laura signed up to premier UK model agency Elite at the age of 14. Laura went on to represent the United Kingdom and came within the top 10 of the Miss International beauty pageant in 2004 and was placed third in the Miss Europe pageant in 2005.

Our Coverboy in this issue is Paul Upali Gouëllo. Adopted by a French couple, Paul returned to Sri Lanka in search of his birth mother recently. Inspired by the dancers of the French Opera and encouraged by his adoptive mother, Paul Upali had the immense fortune of being trained by the respected Jean Claude Gallotta, a famous doyen of dance in France. Paul is a seasoned dancer who has travelled across Europe performing for various audiences. Smitten by Sri Lanka, Paul Upali yearns to return and dance to his heart’s content in the land of his birth.

Our coverboy, Sri Lankan born Bernard White is one who found fame and fortune in Hollywood, acting in roles across a gamut of Hollywood films from The Matrix and Captain America to the West Wing and ER. Appearing in 40 films he has acted alongside Hollywood greats like Meg Ryan, Keanu Reeves, Nicholas Cage and Robert Redford to name a few. As the nephew of Sri Lanka’s first Olympic medalist Duncan White, Bernard’s desire is to return to Sri Lanka and produce his own film on the life of his legendary uncle.

Series 21 Volume 2 - 2023

Series 21 Volume 1 - 2023

Series 20 Volume 6 - 2023

Series 20 Volume 5 - 2023

Series 20 Volume 4 - 2023

Series 20 Volume 3 - 2022

Series 20 Volume 2 - 2022

Series 20 Volume 1 - 2022

Series 19 Volume 6 - 2022

Series 19 Volume 5 - 2022

Series 19 Volume 4 - 2021

Series 19 Volume 3 - 2021

Series 19 Volume 2 - 2021

Series 19 Volume 1 - 2021

Series 18 Volume 6 - 2021

Series 18 Volume 5 - 2020

Hi!! Magazine is Sri Lanka’s first and  premier society magazine and now in its 11th year. Begun with the concept of portraying Sri Lanka in a positive light, Hi!! put within its pages the high fashions of the gliteratti and the literati, parties and the glitz and glamour of not only Colombo but also of major cities around the world where Sri Lankans gather.  It also features trendy Conde Nast winning boutique hotels, resorts and restaurants, the Who’s Who from Hollywood to Bollywood, tourist attractions like whale and dophin watching, what to do and how to do it – with Hi!! projecting Sri Lanka as the ultimate tourist destination.

Best Dressed 2017

HI Best Dressed 2016

HI Best Dressed 2015

1. You agree that the use of Magzter.com, the application and its services, are at solely at your own risk. Neither Magzter.com nor its associates nor employees nor third party content providers guarantee that the service will be completely uninterrupted or error-free or foolproof against miscreant activities. Nor do they warranty that you will get the exact results as expected or promised by the website or product.

11. THE SERVICE AND ALL PUBLICATIONS ARE PROVIDED ON AN 'AS IS' AND 'AS AVAILABLE' BASIS. MAGZTER, ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, LICENSORS AND AGENTS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, NEITHER MAGZTER NOR ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, LICENSORS OR AGENTS, MAKES ANY WARRANTY THAT (I) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (II) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (III) THE INFORMATION THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICE OR THAT MAY BE CONTAINED IN THE PUBLICATIONS WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, OR (IV) THE QUALITY OF ANY PUBLICATIONS OR THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBTAINING AND MAINTAINING RELIABLE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY AND YOUR DEVICE. MAGZTER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR INABILITY TO DOWNLOAD CONTENT. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR MOBILE DEVICE OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM MAGZTER OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

2. You will maintain and promptly update that information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account, including the selection and use of all content and services.

2.You will maintain and promptly update that information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account, including the selection and use of all content and services.

3. In no event will Magzter.com or any person or entity or third party involved in the creation, production and distribution of the content on the website and the application be liable in contract or legally for any damages, including and not limited to, direct, indirect, incidental, special, and consequential incurred to you while or on using Magzter.com. By registering on the website or downloading the application, you agree that the provisions mentioned in this section shall apply to all use of and content on the website and the application.

3. Without prior written or authorised permission from Magzter, you should not modify, copy, distribute or sell any content obtained from Magzter as everything published here is the proprietary property of Magzter or its licensors. As such unauthorised use may also violate applicable laws including copyright and trademark laws, Magzter strictly prohibits these and will terminate your access and account if any such illegal activity is proved or detected. You should also stand liable for the damages caused by these unauthorised activities. Except as permitted by the Publication's lawful owner, you acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights by downloading Publications accessed through the Service. Except as explicitly required under copyright law or permitted by the features of the Service you may not modify, reverse engineer, publish, transmit, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works of, or in any way commercially exploit or provide to a third party the content of the App, the Publications, or any portion of them without the express permission of Magzter and the owner of such content. We do not grant you any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of Magzter or Magzter's licensors.

5. You specifically acknowledge that Magzter.com is not liable for any kind of defamatory or offensive or illegal conduct of other users or third parties or their content and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with you.

8. Magzter reserves all rights to monitor the content published and inputted by you for the purpose of determining whether you are compliant with these terms and conditions and other operating rules determined by Magzter. Magzter has the right to take decisions about the content and delete them at its own will.

9. Magzter is a distributor and NOT a publisher of the Publications and so Magzter has no editorial control over the content, including opinions, advice, statements, services, offers etc., that is represented in the magazines. So Magzter will not take responsibility for the accuracy or the reliability for any information or facts provided therein or that is made available through the service, by anyone other than authorised Magzter employees who are acting on their official capacities. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered by the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of Magzter. Magzter will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information obtained through the Service or from the Publications. The Service may contain links to other Internet sites and third-party resources and Magzter does not assume any responsibility or liability for communications or materials available at such linked sites. These links are provided for your convenience only. You are solely responsible for understanding any terms and conditions that may apply when you visit or place an order through a third-party site.

Details of the objectionable content, including its link on our platform

Download your favorite titles and read them offline, anytime and anywhere

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines and newspapers from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from {{magCount}} best-selling international titles.

Girish Ramdas is the Co-founder and CEO of Magzter, a New York based startup that has been making waves in the global digital publishing business. Magzter has crossed 80 million users since its inception in 2011 from more than 150+ countries with 1000s of magazines, newspapers and books from more than 4,500 publishers worldwide. He has more than 25 years of experience in cross-platform publishing, including print, mobile, and Web development. During this period, he has co-founded and run three successful start-up businesses. He has enabled magazine companies to go digital and helps them monetize their content across the digital world. Girish's deep industry experience in online, mobile and publishing ecosystems has made him an expert in acquisition, marketing and monetizing digital content across platforms globally.

In the event that you encounter any objectionable content on our platform, we have put in place a grievance redressal policy to address your concerns.

Magzter Inc. (“Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”) knows that you care about how your personal information is used and shared. Please read the following privacy policy (the “Policy”) to learn more about our privacy practices. By visiting any of the websites operated by the Company, and any sub-domains thereof, or using any of our mobile applications and other methods of content distribution (collectively, the “Service”), you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.

Magzter Inc. is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 80 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

Magzter is committed to providing a safe and secure platform for our users. Please note that Magzter is merely a platform for publishers to distribute their content. We do not control or endorse the content published on our platform. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of our publishers or their content.

Magzter is not responsible for compensating any party that has suffered damages or incurred costs due to any content, or part of the content, that violates their rights. Magzter is not liable to face any legal action in civil court for any violation of rights caused by any content, or part of the content, that infringes the rights of a third party.

Magzter offers the world’s largest {{allyoucanread}} subscription service called {{gold}} which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,000+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

Magzter offers the world’s largest “All-You-Can-Read” subscription service called Magzter GOLD which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,000+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

Name

Note: This will only share the cover and the publication information, but not the content.

Please fill out this form if you need any help regarding publishing your content on Magzter

Prior to Magzter, he was the President of Dot Com Infoway (DCI) and Galatta Media. His duties included strategic marketing, partnership development, and monetizing content globally. DCI grew from a small team of 3 in 2000 to 300 by 2011 and was dealing with web, software and app development for clients globally.

Since we launched, Magzter has been committed to partnering with global organizations to provide the greatest possible newsstand technology & service to our customers. Whether you are looking to offer magazine subscriptions to your customer database or just want to learn more, Magzter is committed to helping your business grow. To find out more, please fill out the questionnaire below:

The DMCA allows us to restore the removed content if the party filing the original DMCA Notice does not file a court action against you within ten business days of receiving the copy of your Counter Notice.

This Policy covers Company’s treatment of personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) and other information about you and your computer or device that Company gathers when you are accessing the Service. We may collect Personal Information from you, as explained in more detail below, and we use this Personal Information internally in connection with our Services, including to personalize, provide, and improve our products, services, content, and advertising, and to allow you to set up a user account and profile, to contact you, to fulfill your requests for certain products and services, and to analyze how you use the Services. In certain cases, we may also share some Personal Information with third parties, but only as described in point 4.

This title is included with your Magzter GOLD subscription

To analyze the quality of content and provide appropriate feedback to publishers

We have designated a Grievance Officer to address any complaints related to objectionable content.

We request that any complaint related to objectionable content be sent to the Grievance Officer through email to the above-mentioned email address. We also request that you provide the following details when making a complaint:

and the App that provides you the capability to order, subscribe to and receive the delivery of various magazines, books, news and magazine and publication related content (collectively known as 'Publications') and to have these digital versions of the Publications delivered to you

c. We also collect information associated with your use of the application in order to make personalized recommendations. If you provide your third-party account credentials to us, you understand some content and/or information in those accounts (“Third Party Account Information”) may be transmitted into your account with us if you authorize such transmissions, and that Third Party Account Information transmitted to the Service is covered by this Policy.

f. The Personal Information we collect allows us to respond to your requests, improve our products and services, customize the advertising and content you see, and communicate with you about new products.

is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 85 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

n. We will also use usage information in order to ensure users adhere to our Terms of Use. For example, a user’s usage information will help us confirm that a user only downloads a magazine or other content a permitted number of times or to a permitted number of devices.

which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,000+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

{{magzter}} is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 85 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

Hi Magazine - Series 14 Volume 3 2016

Hi Magazine - Series 14 Volume 3 2016

In this issue

Hi Magazine Description: