Rehman Sobhan

Rehman Sobhan (; born 12 March 1935) is a Bangladeshi economist. Regarded as one of the country's top public thinkers, he is the founder and the current chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), an organisation active in open public discussions of policy issues, particularly in the area of governance.

Sobhan was a leading figure in the Bangladeshi independence movement, noted for his role as a spokesman of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in the United States during the Bangladesh Liberation War. He was awarded the Independence Day Award, Bangladesh's highest civilian honour, in 2008. He was also part of the first Planning Commission of Bangladesh and he later served as the planning adviser for the first caretaker government of Bangladesh.

Early life and education

Sobhan's father, Khandker Fazle Sobhan, was a graduate of Presidency College, Kolkata and one of the first Muslims to qualify to attend Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In a 2008 interview, he shared that the recommendations proposed by these task forces were largely ignored by the incoming government. According to him, this provided an impetus for him to found Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in 1993 following his retirement from BIDS.

Family Sobhan married Salma Sobhan in 1962. She was the first woman barrister in Pakistan, an academic and human rights activist. After her death in 2003, he then married Rounaq Jahan, a political scientist and Distinguished Fellow at CPD. Sobhan's younger brother, Farooq Sobhan, is a former diplomat and the current President of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, a private-sector think-tank of Bangladesh.

Selected bibliography Books

—— (2016). Untranquil Recollections: The Years of Fulfilment. New Delhi: SAGE. , —— (2021). Untranquil Recollections: Nation Building in Post-Liberation Bangladesh. New Delhi: SAGE. .

Chapters in books

Journal articles