Playing down concerns of job losses due to off-shoring of its services, the BBC World Service expressed disappointment over a strike by journalists of the Hindi, Urdu and Nepali sections and said there was no disruption to output.

Journalists from the Hindi, Urdu and Nepali services demonstrated outside the iconic Bush House on Thursday after walking out of newsrooms to protest against BBC's plans that they say would cut jobs and curb editorial independence through off-shoring of content to the Indian sub-continent.

The scribes, supported by Britain's National Union of Journalists (NUJ), had brought along sleeping bags as they sat on the pavement and held placards reading 'Standing Up For Journalism', 'Save the BBC World Service' and 'No Offshoring'.

Mike Gardner, BBC's Head of Media and Public Relations, said : "We believe the proposals to increase our presence in the heart of some of the most exciting media markets in the world will create new opportunities for staff and greatly improve our service to our audiences in the region.”

"Our individual discussions with staff have already significantly reduced the number of those potentially facing redeployment from more than 30 to 10," he said. Gardner said the one-day strike did not lead to any disruption to the editorial output of the Hindi, Urdu and Nepali services on Thursday.