Joanna Jolly

Jo has spent many years travelling and reporting from around the world. As the BBC South Asia Editor, she reports on a range of issues and news from the region across radio, television and online.

Born to an English mother and Indian father, she has studied both English Literature and South Asian studies. She began her journalism career in London, working for the Japanese Sankei Shimbun newspaper, before moving to India in 1996 to take up an internship with the Times of India. She lived and worked in Delhi for a year covering a range of social issues, and the general election, before moving to Australia where she spent several years reporting for the Sydney Morning Herald, SBS Television’s international current affairs programme Dateline, as well as British newspapers, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent.

She moved to Indonesia in 1999 to cover the fall of President Suharto before moving to East Timor a few months prior to the UN-sponsored vote for independence from Indonesia. As the situation in East Timor became increasingly dangerous, she stayed behind reporting from the UN compound as it was under siege. She spent several years in Dili, including two years as the Dili correspondent for Associated Press.

She joined the BBC in 2003, working as a producer and reporter with the BBC World Service, where she travelled widely, including working as a radio producer in Jerusalem and Delhi. She was the BBC’s Nepal Correspondent, working out of Kathmandu between 2009-2011, before taking on her current role as BBC South Asia editor in 2012.