President
President
Jacob Tharakan Vadakkedathu
Representative – Canberra Malyalee Association
A results-oriented and self-assured executive endowed with a natural flair for organisational and leadership skills. Highly skilled in people management and possess extensive knowledge and work experience in community services.
Jacob has been living in Canberra since 1998, except 3 years in between the years 2000- 2003 in Sydney as part of a career move. He has Masters Degree in Business Administration from University of Canberra.
Jacob has wife and two kids. Living in the Gungahlin suburb of Nicholls, Jacob is actively involved with lot of Community and Social activities.
Other Roles:
Secretary: Gungahlin Community Council
Board Memeber: Maribyrong primary School (Appointed by ACT Department of Education and Training)
Representative: Canberra Malayalee Association
Treasurer- Sahaya Charity Foundation Canberra, INC
Vice President
Vice President
Jayanti Gupta
Representative – Integrated Cultures ACT Inc
Jayanti has lived in Asia and Europe before migrating to Australia and calling Canberra home. Her career has encompassed working at United Nations Agencies, international NGOs and Australian Public Service.
Jayanti has a very strong background in communications. She worked for several years with All India Radio and Doordarshan. In the former she was an announcer and presenter for the prestigious Delhi-B, Yuva Vani and General Overseas Services. In the latter, she read the news, including the Parliamentary news. She continued her interest in communications and became the anchor for a Tamil programme on Malaysian TV.
In Canberra, Jayanti is well known as a presenter and master of ceremonies for many Indian cultural programmes. For several years she hosted the Tamil and Hindi radio programmes on community radio. Since 1982, Jayanti has been taking value education classes for children. She also conducts classes on Indian Cultural Heritage in Canberra. She loves to sing and has performed, together with her husband, on many stage shows in Canberra and Geneva.
Secretary
Secretary
Amish Chaturvedi
Representative – Bihar Jharkhand Sabha of Australia and New Zealand
Amish is a global citizen who was born in Malaysia and has lived across south east Asia. His family is originally from Lucknow in India. Amish completed most of his schooling in Mauritius and has been living in Australia since 2004. Amish has completed a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and an MBA from the Australian National University.
Amish currently works for Medicines Australia, an industry association that represents research based pharmaceutical industry in Australia. He is passionate about access to medicine, international policy and consumer affairs.
Amish is a natural team player, with excellent communication and stakeholder management skills. He has extensive experience in sales, marketing, corporate strategy, policy development and advocacy. Amish is married to an Australian and has a daughter-Radhika.
Treasurer
Treasurer
Chander Dhawan
Representative – The Canberra Multicultural Artists Association (CMCAA) Inc
Coordinators
Community Services
Pal Muthiah
Representative – Australian Tamil Society of ACT
Social & Cultural Programmes
Gopal Krishnan
Representative – South Indian Fine Arts Association
Representatives
Student/Youth
Shivendra Sharma
Representative – EKTA – Indian Subcontinent Students’ Association (ANU)
Women Representative
Nasreen Hafesjee
Representative – India Australia Association of Canberra
Nasreen has been in Australia for about 16 years – 10 years in Canberra, earlier in Melbourne and Sydney. Has worked successfully off and on in different jobs, has been mainly volunteering the last few years. Some of the great places she has volunteered are; Parentline, Belconnen Arts Centre, CMS Radio (as a presenter for Radio Manpasand) and IAAC (as Secretary).
Most of the members of Indian community will remember her long for her creative contributions – writing scripts, managing performances of participating artistes, and audio-visual editing skills – to the recently organised successful stage show “Yaad Na Jaaye” A Tribute to Mohd Rafi.
Multilingual – speaks English, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, German and can also read French. Understands many Indian languages.
Her next venture is the ACT Multicultural Women’s Radio program to be launched shortly (8th August).
Seniors Representative
Subhash Jalota
Representative – Indian Seniors Citizens Association of ACT Inc
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