Reeta Chakrabarti was born on 12 December 1964 and is a British journalist, newsreader and correspondent for BBC News.
22 Facts About Reeta Chakrabarti
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Reeta Chakrabarti is known for presenting BBC News at One, BBC News at Six, BBC News at Ten and BBC Weekend News, and presenting regularly on the BBC News Channel and occasionally BBC World News.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was born on 12 December 1964 in Ealing, London to an Indian Bengali family and was raised in Hull and Birmingham.
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Reeta Chakrabarti studied English and French at Exeter College, Oxford, from 1984 to 1988, including a year in France.
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Reeta Chakrabarti started as a producer on BBC Radio 4, working on the Today programme, The World at One and PM before becoming a reporter on 5 Live Breakfast, in which she covered the French presidential elections, and the Dunblane massacre.
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Reeta Chakrabarti covered home affairs including the Damilola Taylor murder trial and Health.
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Reeta Chakrabarti has reported on social matters, with stories relating to adoption, poverty, and social mobility in the UK.
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Reeta Chakrabarti reported from a ship in the Mediterranean on the European migrant crisis in 2016 and 2017.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was part of the studio team for the 2019 UK general election, and the 2020 US presidential election.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was one of the presenters of the BBC's news coverage of COVID-19 during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
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In March 2022 Reeta Chakrabarti was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in western Ukraine, anchoring the news bulletins 10 days after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Reeta Chakrabarti has presented on BBC World and Radio 4's The World Tonight.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was named an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 2018.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was made an honorary doctor of letters by York St John University in 2018, and became the chancellor of York St John University in 2019 and an honorary fellow of University College, London in 2019.
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Reeta Chakrabarti is an honorary fellow of the University of East London.
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In December 2022 Reeta Chakrabarti was a member of the team for Exeter College, Oxford, which reached the semi-final in BBC Two's Christmas University Challenge.
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Reeta Chakrabarti is married to Paul Hamilton, professor of English at Queen Mary University of London.
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Reeta Chakrabarti's younger sister, Lolita Chakrabarti is a British actress and writer and her brother-in-law Adrian Lester is an actor.
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Reeta Chakrabarti is a fan of the poet John Keats, and chose him as her specialist subject on the BBC television quiz Celebrity Mastermind broadcast on 22 December 2016.
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Reeta Chakrabarti is a patron of Pan Intercultural Arts, a UK charity that uses the arts to empower marginalised young people and unlock their potential.
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Reeta Chakrabarti is a patron of the Oxford University Media Society, and became a trustee for the Keats Shelley Memorial Association in 2021.
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Reeta Chakrabarti was a judge for the David Cohen Prize for Literature 2021 and chaired the panel of judges choosing the Costa Book of the Year 2021.