NRI CA, Community activist receives honour Queen’s
Birthday Honours (OBE)
London, 29 June 2010
AB
Anil Bhanot, the former General Secretary of the Hindu Council UK, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list today for his services to the Hindu Community and Inter-Faith Relations in the UK.
Anil Bhanot runs his own Chartered Accountancy practice in West London, and got involved in community affairs in 1992 as one of the founding members of Hindu Council UK. As the General Secretary from 2003 to 2009 he united various factions of Hinduism under one umbrella with 400 organisational members but more importantly he ensured all voices were represented on his Executive Board, including under represented communities such as the Valmiki and Ravidassia Communities.
Most recently, Anil helped form a wider Indic faiths based body: The Council of Dharmic Faiths. This organisation consists of representation from the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths and has been set up to encourage friendship, goodwill and better understanding amongst Dharmic faiths.
On receiving the honour, Anil Bhanot commented that “I would like to dedicate this honour to all the people in the UK who are striving to develop good relations with other faiths, by participating in interfaith activities and promoting community cohesion within the diverse society within which we live”.
Apart from his work in Faith he chairs the Council of Ethnic Minority & Voluntary Sector Organisations, a National NGO in the UK, to help tackle inequalities generally and care for all marginalised communities in the UK.
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