She is known for her work on the publication of the Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts of the British Library published by the Institute of Jainology.
She started her career as a teacher of French, Latin and Greek in secondary schools (1977 to 1980), before completing her PhD in Indian Studies (Études indiennes) with the edition and annotated translation of the Danastaka-katha, a book of Jain narratives in Sanskrit, which was published in 1982.
Dr Balbir is currently Professor for Indian Studies (Études Indiennes) at the Sorbonne Nouvelle (University of Paris-3), and since the year 2000 also Directeur d'Études for Middle-Indian Philology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (Section des Sciences historiques et philologiques).
As a trained philologist, her main areas of research are Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Theravada Buddhism, Jainism, and Hindi language and literature of the 20th century.
She is also a member of Pali text society in London and editor since 1983 of Bulletin d'Études Indiennes, an Indology Journal.