Dear Visitor ji,
Namaste!!
The King’s Birthday Honours List 2023 recognised twelve Indian Australians across the country for their outstanding contribution to various fields, including community service. FINACT congratulates all the recipients and thank them for their contribution. You can read about their work in the Indian Link articles. In this special issue, FINACT acknowledges and celebrates six Caberrans who have been conferred with the Order of Australia Medal in the latest round of honours.
This is a proud moment for FINACT and the Indian diaspora more broadly, in celebrating the significant achievement of local heroes, at national level. FINACT will be felicitating the recipients on 2 July 4 to 6 pm, venue to be confirmed shortly. Please visit FINACT Facebook for further details. Please mark this date and be there to greet and thank them for serving the community.
Dr Shanti Reddy
FINACT President
Twelve Indian Australians made it to the King’s Birthday Honours List 2023 for contribution to various fields.
Proud to see four of them from Canberra in the honours list.
Heartiest congratulations to Dr Sunita Dhindsa OAM, Nishi Puri OAM, Arun Venkatesha OAM, Dean Sahu Khan OAM, Jaishri Patricia Falcetta OAM and Mainul Haque OAM.
Dr Sunita Dhindsa OAM Past President of FINACT
We are very happy and excited to see Dr Dhindsa’s service to the local community has been recognised in this year’s Honours List.
Dr Dhindsa has provided valuable service to the community in her role as a past president of FINACT, inaugural chair of Confederation of Indian Associations of Australia (CIFA), through Fair Canberra, Royal Commonwealth Society, Rotary Club, among others. She has been the guiding force behind the FINACT Domestic and Family Violence Initiative.
During the COVID-19 outbreak she did an outstanding job in assisting the community and provided inputs to the Federal and ACT government to inform policies in responding to the outbreak.
Dr Dhindsa quoted in the Indian Link “It is a privilege to be able to contribute to the society, to the country that has given us so much. The inspiration to give comes from the Sikh ethos of selfless service and from the family tradition on both sides of the family. It is truly awesome for the community and for those serving the community selflessly, when some of their work gets recognised. It will surely provide inspiration to current and future volunteers.”
Congratulations Dr Sunitha Dhindsa OAM!
Mrs Nishi Puri OAM
Mrs Nishi Puri is a well-known community leader in Canberra’s multicultural community, who has been providing active service to the community in her role as the president of the ACT Chapter of the Global Organisations of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), past president of the India Australia Association of Canberra (IAAC) and Founder and Chair of Multicultural Association of Canberra (MAC).
She organises regular events and useful workshops providing valuable services to elderly and vulnerable members of the community. Her commitment and achievements have been recognised through several awards, including most recently as the Multicultural Ambassador for the ACT for a three-year period from 2022.
She told the Indian Link “I was taken aback that I was considered worthy. I view my OAM honour as my joy and pride.”
Congratulations Mrs Nishi Puri OAM!
Mr Arun Venkatesha OAM
Mr Arun Venkatesha is also a well-known member of the Indian diaspora who has been serving the community in various roles including Canberra India Council, Bihar Jharkhand Sabha of Australia and New Zealand, Diwali Mela Inc, ACT Chapter of Australia India Business Council, Karnataka Association of Canberra, India Australia Association of Canberra and Sri Vishnu Shiva Mandir.
Arun is never shy from helping anyone in any capacity and always actively contributing at any events and functions. A calm and ever smiling personality, he is dearly called Devru (God in Kannada language) by some of his friends because of his helping and jolly nature.
FINACT appreciates his great contributions and seamless sports organising skills in early years of our community fests, such as FINACT T-20 Rolling Trophy Cricket Tournament. FINACT is very pleased to see his service to the community has been recognised in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours list. We extend our congratulations to Arun's family for their support to Arun in his contribution to the community.
Congratulations Mr Arun Venkatesha OAM!
Mr Dean Sahu Khan OAM
Mr Sahu Khan has been a strong supporter of FINACT and the Indian and Fijian diaspora. As the leader and founding member of the Canberra Interfaith Forum he has been active in bringing different faiths together, bridging the gap, connecting people to serve the community. He has been encouraging and consistently working on having interfaith dialogue since 1991. He has a passion for having interfaith dialogue. He is the President of Canberra Interfaith Forum for the last about 13 years. He calls the Canberra Interfaith Forum his “adopted child”.
He is a lawyer by profession and has been practising law since 1974. He is currently practicing at Legal onLondon in Canberra. He served at the office of Director of Public Prosecutions for 30 years as a senior Prosecutor with the ACT Government. He comes from a family of lawyers. His father and all 4 brothers were lawyers.
He tells the Indian Link “All religions teach us how to be, and how to live a good life – but we often miss the point of the key messages. We fail to realise that we are all children of the one creator – regardless of how that creator manifests in our religious texts.”
Dean Sahu Khan observed that many of us judge the actions of the individual as a reflection of their respective religion, when the reality is that the crucial messages of the scriptures are misunderstood or misinterpreted, and often subject to the whims of the human condition. Additionally, he observed, the similarities of the scriptures – the germane ideas and fundamental truths – are overlooked in favour of the focus on the differences.
Congratulations Mr Dean Sahu Khan OAM!
Ms Jaishri Patricia Falcetta OAM
Ms Jaishri Patricia Falcetta is the founder and director of Social Living Solutions, and the creator of the Family JoyModel™, a holistic program to support neurodivergent families. Neurodivergent herself, Patricia is a passionate advocate for neurodiverse people. Patricia helps families with neurodivergent members live a joyful life free of discrimination and judgment. Through her work, Patricia hopes to a world where neurodivergent people are accepted, integrated, and recognised as valued members of society. She aspires to remove prejudices and misconceptions around neurodiversity and replace ignorance with compassionate understanding. Her work in this area has been recognised in this year’s King’s Birthday honours with an OAM.
Patricia’s paternal family roots go back to Kerala. Her father was born in Fiji. Her great great grandparents were taken to Fiji as indentured labourers. Her mother is half Polish, half Irish. Please see this Indian Link article for more info. She told the Indian Link “I am thoroughly honoured”. “After this recognition, I really do want to publish a book. I have written 20,000 words of it, and there is still a lot more to go.”
Patricia has been a finalist in the ACT Chief Minister's Inclusion awards in 2019 and was a finalist again in the 2022 Awards.
Congratulations Ms Jaishri Patricia Falcetta OAM!
Mr Mainul Haque OAM
Mr Mainul Haque is a strong supporter of FINACT and the Indian community. He received OAM for service to the multicultural community of Canberra. He was the president of Canberra Muslim Community from 2016-2019, involved with the establishment of Gungahlin Mosque.
He is a Board Member of ACT Council of Social Service, since 2021 and Member of ACT Multicultural Advisory Council since 2020. Mainul originally hails from Bangladesh and has been a long-term resident of Canberra.
Congratulations Mr Mainul Haque OAM!
AusIndia Fair 2023 Saturday 23 September 2023
Please keep an eye on this space for further information on our signature Annual festival.
Our Sincere thanks to High Commission of India, Canberra, ACT Government and businesses for sponsoring the Arvensys AusIndia Fair 2022.
Brainobrain Kids Academy Pty Ltd
Thanks to Ram Kavuri, Managing Director, Brainobrain Kids Academy Pty Ltd for supporting FINACT as a silver sponsor. For more information on their services please visit their web site http://www.brainobrainaustralia.com/. You can contact them on +61 450 033 556 / +61 424 560 580, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Your input/event for FINACT newsletter is appreciated and welcome
Newsletter for communities
You will appreciate that newsletters are critical instrument and platform to meet our functional, operational and strategic communication needs. We have been using this infrastructure for long to effectively interact with you.
Funding under the digital grants from the ACT Government has further boosted our capabilities and confidence in meeting our objectives. We thank the ACT Government for their generosity that enables us to extend our tools to our member associations. Please see below for more information on how you can use this feature.
As you know FINACT newsletter is generally published once a month. If our member associations like to publish their organisation's event in the FINACT newsletter, please provide the following information:
- Event name, date, time and venue followed by text
- Text in word format (not PDF)
- Text within 150 words
- One image/picture if needed.
If you have a flyer ready for the event then FINACT can also publish the flyer in the newsletter.
You can submit this information at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by the last week of month - marked as For FINACT Newsletter.
What else FINACT can do for you?
We acknowlege that not all associations can afford to have mailing lists or tools to regularly interact/communicate with their members. FINACT has tools and capacity to be of your assistance. You may subscribe your members on our subscription page.
Sponsorship Appreciated for FINACT Events
We understand that one of the main reasons to sponsor a tournament and any event could be to promote one’s business and generate goodwill in the community. Sponsoring the FINACT events will give you brand recognition among the fastest-growing community group of Indians in the ACT and increase sales or traffic to sponsor’s website through their banner on our website (www.finact.net.au ).
Indians are the fastest growing population in Australia. This has resulted in increased air traffic between India and Australia; increased telecommunication; and enhanced trade and cultural ties. For sporting events - players and their supporters make playing cricket a fiercely competitive and memorable event. They will promote the game and use your services to show their appreciation.
In addition to providing an excellent opportunity to connect with the Indian sub-continent communities, the FINACT events' sponsorship will:
- enable sponsors to reach out to wider community groups in ACT and surrounds
- fulfil sponsors business objectives and attract sizeable potential customers
- provide a lasting impression of their business
- promote sports and physical activities in the community
- motivate and assist young players participating in the tournament and community activities
- attract favourable feedback from organisers and media partners
- generate great feel-good stories in Indian community and back to India and neighbouring countries and
- fulfil sponsor’s corporate and social responsibilities
If you are willing to or interested in sponsoring our events, please contact us soon.
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