Rehman Sobhan

Rehman Sobhan ( _bn. রেহমান সোবহান), a prominent economist, played a significant role in the nationalist movement of Bangladesh in the 1960s.

Education and career

Rehman Sobhan attended St. Paul's School, Darjeeling in India, he went on to Cambridge University to study in economics for a doctoral degree but returned without finishing the course requirement. He taught Economics at the University of Dhaka. After liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, Rehman Sobhan was made a member of the Planning Commission. He had to quit when he, along with others, fell from the grace of Sheikh Mujib in 1975. Later he worked as the Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies. After retirement he set up Centre for Policy Dialogue, the most important private sector research institute and think-tank of Bangladesh since 1993 and worked as its Executive Chairman for a long time.

Pre-independence Contributions

In 1960s, Professor Sobhan along with other nationalist economists contributed to the drafting of six-points programme that became the basis for the struggle for autonomy in the then East Pakistan. Various writings of this young Cambridge trained economist on regional disparity between West Pakistan (Pakistan since 1972) and East Pakistan (Bangladesh since 1972) played a successful role in fomenting nationalist aspirations of the people of Bangladesh. During the liberation war for Bangladesh from 26th March to 16th December of 1971), he was a roving ambassador of Bangladesh and lobbyied for Bangladesh in the United States.

Post-independence activities

After the independence of Bangladesh he was appointed a member of the Planning Commission in 1972. He left the country after he was asked to quit. Upon his return to Bangladesh in 1982, he continued to be active in economic research and policy debates first with Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and later he founded the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a leading think-tank in South Asia. Currently he is the chairman of CPD. CPD contributes on the important policy issues and arranges open public discussions. Mainly its for promoting an effective governance. He has authored over two dozens books and numerous articles both in professional journals as well as popular media. He was also made an advisor of the Caretaker Government in Bangladesh in 1990-91.

Trivia

Professor Sobhan's cohorts at Cambridge included prominent economists of the Indian subcontinent such as Amartya Sen, Manmohan Singh, and Mahbub-ul Haque. Sobhan continues to play an active role in the civil society movement in South Asia. He is a leading public intellectual in Bangladesh.

Family

He was married to Salma Sobhan who was a Barrister and a human rights activist,

Awards

Rehman Sobhan was awarded the Indepence Award, the top-most state award of Bangladesh in 2008. The citation said that the award was being given in recognition of his glorious and excellent contribution to research and training. [ [http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=29346 :The Daily Star: Internet Edition ] ]

Publications [ [http://www.cpd-bangladesh.org/about/rs.html Centre for Policy Dialogue Bangladesh: Professor Rehman Sobhan ] ]

* Basic Democracies, Works Programme and Rural Development in East Pakistan (1968),
* Public Enterprise in an Intermediate Regime: A Study in the Political Economy of Bangladesh (1980).
* The Crisis of External Dependence: The Political Economy of Foreign Aid to Bangladesh (1982),
* Public Enterprise and the Nature of the State (1983),
* Rural Poverty and Agrarian Reform in the Philippines (1983),
* From Aid Dependence to Self-Reliance: Development Options for Bangladesh (1990),
* Debt Default and the Crisis of State Sponsored Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh (1991),
* Public Allocative Strategies, Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation : A Global Perspective (1991),
* Planning and Public Action for Asian Women (1992),
* Rethinking the Role of the State in Development : Asian Perspectives (1993),
* Bangladesh : Problems of Governance (1993),
* Agrarian Reform and Social Transformation (1993),
* Aid Dependence and Donor Policy: The Case of Tanzania (1996),
* Towards a Theory of Governance and Development: Learning from East Asia (1998),
* Team leader and Editor of the annual Independent Review of Bangladesh's Development: Experiences with Economic Reform (1995),
* Growth or Stagnation? A Review of Bangladesh's Development (1996),
* Crisis in Governance:Review of Bangladesh's Development (1997),
* Trends in the Post-Flood Economy:Review of Bangladesh's Development (2000).

References