Ranaviru Real Star:

New experience for Armed Forces

The winner of this competition will be offered a brand new luxury house valued at Rs 10 million. The second prize will be Rs two million and the third prize Rs one million. Special prizes would also be offered to the 20 finalists

Television viewers in Sri Lanka will gain a novel experience when the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation telecasts the world’s first ever reality program featuring Security Forces Personnel titled, ‘Ranaviru Real Star’ on Friday and Saturday at 10 pm beginning from today (November 5), on a concept of Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Nearly 30,000 personnel with vocal talents in the Security Forces attended the initial auditioning of this program out of which 500 have been short-listed by an independent panel of Judges comprising music artistes under the supervision of senior Security Forces personnel. This 500 is made up of 300 from the Army, 125 from the Navy and 75 from the SLAF.

Of them 100 would be selected from the first round and batches of 50, 30 will be selected from subsequent rounds and of them 20 for the final round. Initial round judges panel included Samantha Perera, Morris Barney Wijesinghe, Navaratne Gamage and Rangana Ariyadasa. Initial competitions relating to the SLAF were held at the Ratmalana Air Force camp while Navy Competitions were held at the Rangala and Trincomalee Navy Camps and Army Competitions at Minneriya, Saliyapura, Panagoda, Jaffna and Palaly camps.

The events were rewarded with natural backgrounds depicting SLAF yards, Navy vessels and Army’s manpower and military strengths.

Recordings were also held in Navy vessels in mid sea off Trincomalee and they were videoed from air and Dvora Fast Attack Craft.

Chief guests at the initial rounds were Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Defence Ministry Additional Secretary B K A U Wickramasinghe and Media Centre for National Security Director General Lakshman Hulugalle.

Regional commanders of the three Forces also contributed towards the success of these programs. Ranaviru Real Star is sponsored by Dialog under the guidance of its Director/CEO Hans Wijesuriya, Group Marketing Manager Nushard Perera, Group Media and Promotion Manager Rizvi Farouk and Marketing Manager Hasrath Munasinghe. The final round competitions will be telecast from January next year and listeners would be able to participate in voting through SMS. However selection of winners will not entirely depend on short messages.

Forty percent of the judgment will be from SMS and the balance 60 percent decided by the panel of judges. Results will be audited by a reputed auditing firm.

Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation will telecast ‘Ranaviru Real Star’ under the supervision of its Chairman Sarath Kongahage.

The finals of this competition held on a grand scale at the Sugathadasa Stadium will be telecast live. The winner of this competition will be offered a brand new luxury house valued at Rs 10 million. The second prize will be Rs two million and the third prize Rs one million.

Special prizes would also be offered to the 20 finalists.

Although Security Forces which ended a 30 year war is looked at as cruel, this competition will show that they are an outfit comprising friendly men and women with sensitive hearts and minds.