WSJ names Mandhana as Southeast Asia bureau chief

Gordon Fairclough, the South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following announcement to the staff:

I am excited to share the news that Niharika Mandhana has been named The Wall Street Journal’s bureau chief for Southeast Asia. After an extraordinary run as a wide-ranging correspondent based in Hong Kong, Niharika will move to Singapore to oversee coverage of this fast-changing region.

Niharika, who joined the Journal in New Delhi in 2013, will lead a team of correspondents, roving from Indonesia and the Philippines to Myanmar.

Over the past year or so, Niharika has written about Rohingya refugees, maritime disputes in the South China Sea and North Korean sanctions evasion. She tracked North Korean vessels making illicit transfers at sea and is now an expert on the intricacies of fraudulent ship registration.

While stationed in India, Niharika covered a pivotal period in Indian politics. She traveled to remote mountain areas to report on frictions between India and China, trudged through coal mines to write about India’s state-run companies and filed from the epicenter of a devastating earthquake in Nepal.

She also wrote about spy pigeons.

Niharika was born in Mumbai, studied law in India and has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She was a reporter at The New York Times in New Delhi before joining the Journal.

Please join me in congratulating her on her new role.

Best,

Gordon