Sonia Deol
Encyclopedia
Sonia Deol is a British
British Indian
The term British Indian refers to citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian descent, and Indian-born people who have migrated to the UK...

 radio and television presenter who has presented the Sonia Deol Show on the BBC Asian Network
BBC Asian Network
BBC Asian Network is a British radio station serving those originating from and around the Indian subcontinent. The music and news comes out of the main urban areas where there are significant communities with these backgrounds. The station has production centres in Birmingham, Leicester and London...

.

Background

Born as Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu in England to Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...

 Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

  parents. Her media career began before she left school, when at the age of 14 she presented a one off programme to raise money for Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...

 on the BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...

 station, BBC WM
BBC WM
BBC WM is the BBC Local Radio service for the West Midlands, South Staffordshire, north Worcestershire and north Warwickshire, operated by BBC Birmingham. Launched on 9 November 1970 as BBC Radio Birmingham, it broadcasts from central Birmingham on 95.6 FM, DAB and on the internet...

. She graduated from the University of Hertfordshire
University of Hertfordshire
The University of Hertfordshire is a new university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 27,500 students, over 2500 staff, with a turnover of over £181m...

 in 1994 with a BA (Honours) in Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

.

Early career

After university she joined Sunrise Radio
Sunrise Radio
Sunrise Radio is the United Kingdom's first Independent Local Radio station to cater specifically for the Asian community. Dr Avtar Lit is the chairman and chief executive of this media group which also operates kismat radio,buzz asia,punjabi radio as well as sunrise tv-Transmission:It initially...

 in 1994

In 2000, she was a presenter and newsreader for BBC London. And after went on Asian network Radio XL presenting their mid-morning show, the first ever phone in show dedicated to the Asian Community
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...

 in the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

.

BBC Asian Network: Sonia Deol Show (October 2002- April 2006)

In 2002 she returned to the BBC Asian Network, when it was relaunched from a regional Midlands based radio station, to a national, Digital Audio Broadcasting
Digital audio broadcasting
Digital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....

 (DAB) station, presenting the Sonia Deol Show.
The show was broadcast live on weekdays from 9am to 12pm featuring a phone-in and discussion on news, current affairs and matters generally interspersed with music notably Bhangra. On 26 September 2003 she interviewed Indian film director Kaizad Gustad
Kaizad Gustad
Kaizad Gustad is an Indian film director and writer. He is best known for his 1998 comedy Bombay Boys and debut novel Of No Fixed Address....

 about his 2003 Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 film, Boom
Boom (2003 film)
Boom is a Bollywood film that was released on 19 September 2003. It stars Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Padma Lakshmi, Madhu Sapre, Katrina Kaif and Zeenat Aman. The film is directed by Kaizad Gustad and produced by Jackie Shroff's wife, Ayesha Shroff...

 which had been criticised in India for its raunchy sex scenes which were said to break all rules of taste and decency in Indian cinema.

On 6 October 2003 she was the co-host, with then Director-General
Director-General of the BBC
The Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC.The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC and is now appointed by the BBC Trust....

 of the BBC, Greg Dyke
Greg Dyke
Gregory "Greg" Dyke is a British media executive, journalist and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing 'tabloid' television to British broadcasting, and reviving the ratings of TV-am...

, of the BBC local radio's Frank Gillard Awards
Frank Gillard Awards
The Frank Gillard Awards are awards for BBC Local Radio stations in the UK. They are named after Frank Gillard who initiated the BBC's local radio network...

 ceremony held at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now renamed the National Media Museum) in Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

.
In an interview with The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

 newspaper in May 2006, Deol would state that co-hosting the awards with Dyke was one of the proudest achievements in her working life.
Her show won a bronze award in the Interactive Category of the 2003 Sony Radio Academy Awards
Sony Radio Academy Awards
The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...

.

In May 2004 the BBC Press Office had to deny that Deol had been sacked over an "on-air blunder" on the Sonia Deol Show. A guest on the show had said that that Guru Nanak Dev
Guru Nanak Dev
Guru Nanak was the founder of the religion of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. The Sikhs believe that all subsequent Gurus possessed Guru Nanak’s divinity and religious authority, and were named "Nanak" in the line of succession.-Early life:Guru Nanak was born on 15 April 1469, now...

, the founder of Sikhism who is revered by Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

s and Sikhs, was Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

, resulting in a huge backlash and even a campaign to boycott the Asian Network. Although Deol had immediately informed the guest how offensive their remarks were, the BBC had to release a statement to make it clear that the views expressed by the guest were "deplorable and condemned by the programme makers and the management of the Asian Network". The national dual-language Sikh Times
Sikh Times
The Sikh Times is a Handsworth-based dual language weekly newspaper primarily targeting Sikhs in the Birmingham area in England.It is written in both Punjabi and English with English covering most of the paper's content....

 ran a front page article expressing its disgust at the Asian Network.
In May 2005 she presented her show live from a temporary "mini radio station" at the St Paul's Way Community School in Tower Hamlets, London as part of a series of broadcasts from the school to celebrate the first visit to England of the Bangladesh national cricket team.
On 2 September she presented her show live from Paris, France, one year on from the ban on wearing headscarves and religious symbols
Religious symbolism
Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion. Religions view religious texts, rituals, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals...

 in French public schools
Education in France
The French educational system is highly centralized, organized, and ramified. It is divided into three different stages:* the primary education ;* secondary education ;...

, often known as the French headscarf ban
French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public primary and secondary schools...

, looking at the impact the ban had on the Asian community in France and whether the wearing of religious symbols should be banned in British schools
Education in the United Kingdom
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is responsible for England, and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are...

.

BBC Asian Network: Sonia Deol on the BBC Asian Network Show (April 2006- February 2008)

In January 2006 the BBC announced major programme changes for the revamp of the Asian Network which took place the following April. Deol was moved from the mid-morning slot to the breakfast slot,
and from 24 April she was the presenter of Sonia Deol on the BBC Asian Network which was moved back to the 6am to 9am weekday slot replacing the Breakfast Show, with Anita Rani
Anita Rani
Anita Rani is an English born ethnic Indian radio and television presenter and journalist.-Early life:Rani was born and raised in Bradford in Yorkshire, to a mother of Sikh origins, and Hindu father...

 taking over the mid-morning slot, having previously filled in on the programme. Deol's new show focused on news, music and entertainment and did not have a regular phone-in.

On the BBC Asian Network her mission has been to broaden the appeal of the network and encourage listeners from backgrounds other than South Asian while maintaining a service to the core audience. On her programme she has talked to all the main British political party leaders and many other leading figures from politics, media, films, music and other areas from around the world.

On 18 November she was nominated in the Best UK Asian Radio Show category in the annual UK Asian Music Awards which was held at the Hammersmith Palais
Hammersmith Palais
The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, later simply the Hammersmith Palais, was a ballroom and entertainment venue in London that operated from 1919 until 2007...

 in London on 6 December. The award was won by BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 duo Bobby
Bobby Friction
Paramdeep Singh Sehdev , better known as Bobby Friction, is a DJ, television presenter and radio presenter from west London.He studied Contemporary Arts at The Nottingham Trent University....

 and Nihal
DJ Nihal
DJ Nihal is an English radio and TV presenter, as well as club night promoter and DJ, currently broadcasting on BBC Radio 1, BBC Asian Network and since August 6, 2010 BBC Radio 5 Live...

 for their midnight show on the station. She won the Asian Achievers Media Award for 2006.

On 24 November 2006 she conducted an exclusive interview for her show, which was later repeated on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

's Today Programme
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...

, with long term prisoner in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Mirza Tahir Hussain
Mirza Tahir Hussain
Mirza Tahir Hussain is a British man released on 17 November 2006 after spending 18 years on death row in Pakistan for the murder of a taxicab driver named Jamshed Khan in 1988, a crime which he says he committed in self-defence, as Khan pulled out a gun and tried to sexually assault him. In the...

, from Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, who had been released from prison after his death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

 had been commuted to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

 by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...

 after many years in which Hussain had been found innocent twice and found guilty by different courts and sentenced to death by hanging numerous times. Deol spoke with him on his return to the UK. Deol hosted a special Asian Network Report - Big Brother special debate, broadcast live from the University of East London
University of East London
The University of East London is a university located in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, based at two campuses in Stratford and Docklands areas...

 following on from the Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy
Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy
The Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy was a series of events related to incidents of perceived racist behaviour by contestants on the television series Celebrity Big Brother 2007 shown on British television station Channel 4...

. As part of the 2007 Diwali
Diwali
Diwali or DeepavaliThe name of the festival in various regional languages include:, , , , , , , , , , , , , popularly known as the "festival of lights," is a festival celebrated between mid-October and mid-December for different reasons...

 celebrations on 9 November, Deol presented a Diwali special on her morning show, which included her talking with English R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 singer, Jay Sean in the studio about his Diwali plans. These included a visit to a KFC and taking a train from Clapham Junction to Victoria, and then back again to Clapham Junction, while talking for the entire time on a mobile telephone.

Other Work (February 2008 - April 2009)

On 6 February 2008 the BBC announced that by mutual agreement Deol would not be returning to the Breakfast Show which would continue with the main presenter being Jas Rao, who had been mainly covering for Sonia in her absence on holiday since Autumn 2007. The BBC announced that "Sonia and the station are exploring different opportunities with the Asian Network and we will let you know about these once they are agreed. he is also involved in other TV projects and has recently presented The Big Questions on BBC One." She is now a presenter of BBC Breakfast on BBC 1 and the BBC News Channel.

She was a roving reporter on The Heaven and Earth Show on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 interviewing the likes of Olivia Newton John former Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

, Clare Short
Clare Short
Clare Short is a British politician, and a member of the Labour Party. She was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010; for most of this period she was a Labour Party MP, but she resigned the party whip in 2006 and served the remainder of her term as an Independent. She...

. In September 2007 she began as working as a co-presenter on its successor The Big Questions
The Big Questions
The Big Questions is a faith and ethics television programme usually presented by Nicky Campbell. It is currently broadcast live on BBC One between 10:00am and 11:00am on Sunday, replacing Heaven & Earth as the BBC's religious discussion programme....

, a Sunday morning debate show, presented by Nicky Campbell
Nicky Campbell
Nicholas Andrew Argyll "Nicky" Campbell is a Scottish radio and television presenter and journalist. He is known for his time presenting on programmes such as the consumer affairs programme Watchdog...

, also on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

. She now appears as an occasional presenter on BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast is the morning television news programme simulcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. It is presented live from BBC Television Centre in White City, West London, and contains a mixture of news, sport, weather, business and feature items...

 at the weekend. She has also presented the West Midlands regional opt-out for The Politics Show
The Politics Show
The Politics Show is an hour long BBC One television political programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sundays. The programme usually starts at midday, but is often earlier or later when sporting events clash in the schedules. It was launched in 2003 and was originally presented by Jeremy...

each Sunday on BBC One.
In January 2010, she presented, on BBC One, a controversial documentary about the 1984 attacks on The Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Return To Asian Network (June 2008 - Present)

Sonia returned to the Asian Network on 2 June 2008 sitting in for Nihal for a number of weeks during the summer and presenting the Friday edition of the show until January 2010 when she became the presenter of the 10am - 12:30pm 'morning' show.

On Sunday 24 January 2010, Sonia presented the BBC 1 documentary, 1984: A Sikh Story where she embarked on a personal journey to unravel the events of 1984, an iconic year for the Sikhs. The documentary was controversial because of its "sweeping statements" and a perceived lack of insight into the unresolved issues raised by the 1984 anti-Sikh riots
1984 anti-Sikh riots
The 1984 Anti-Sikh pogroms / riots or the 1984 Sikh Massacre was a sikh genocide there was four days of violence in northern India, particularly Delhi, during which armed mobs killed Sikhs, looted and set fire to Sikh homes, businesses and schools, and attacked gurdwaras, in response to the...

 and Operation Blue Star
Operation Blue Star
Operation Blue Star ) 3– 6 June 1984 was an Indian military operation, ordered by Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India, to remove Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar...

. According to the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

, The Sikh Channel and BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 received thousands of calls complaining about the bias shown in the film.

External links

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