Farooq Sobhan

Sobhan was born in 1940 in Calcutta during British rule into an aristocratic Bengali Muslim family of Khandakars. He did his schooling in St. Paul's School, Darjeeling. He attended the University of Dhaka and the University of Oxford before joining the Foreign Service of Pakistan.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} He is also the younger brother of Rehman Sobhan, an economist.{{cite web |title=In conversation with Professor Rehman Sobhan - The Man behind the Economics |url=https://cpd.org.bd/cpd-rehman-sobhan-man-behind-economics/ |website=Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) |date=5 April 2015}}

He also served as the chairman of the Board of Investment in with rank and status of a State Minister. As of 2022, Sobhan is the president of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, a private think-tank in the country that focuses on private sector development.{{cite web|url=http://bei-bd.org/teamdetails.php?tid=1 |title=BEI Team |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402143357/http://bei-bd.org/teamdetails.php?tid=1 |archive-date=2015-04-02 }}

Sobhan was executive chairman, Board of Investment and special envoy to the Prime Minister from 1997 to 1999. He served as chairman of the Group of 77 at the UN 1982–1983, and was chairman, UN Commission on TNCs (transnational corporations) from 1991 to 1992. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies, based in Kathmandu and was co-chairman of the Coalition for South Asian Co- operation from 1994 to 2001.

Sobhan was a visiting professor at the Elliott School for International Affairs at George Washington University in 2003, where he taught a post-graduate course on South Asia. He is the chairman of the board of trustees of the independent CSR Centre, an organization focused on corporate social responsibility, established in Dhaka in September 2007. He is the chairman of an advisory committee on counter terrorism established in 2006, which includes senior officials of the government.

Sobhan's publications include a book entitled Opportunities for South-South Co-operation and as co-author, Shaping South Asia’s Future: Role of Regional Co-operation.

Sobhan was the principal challenger for Commonwealth Secretary-General when Don McKinnon was elected at the 1999 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.{{cite journal |last=Ingram |first=Derek |author-link=Derek Ingram (journalist) |date=January 2000 |title=Commonwealth Update |journal=The Round Table |volume=89 |issue=353 |page=15 |doi=10.1080/750459450 |s2cid=219628644 }} He stood on a platform of changing the emphasis of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group from infringements on the Commonwealth's democratic principles to 'any economic or environmental crisis'.{{cite journal |last=Colvile |first=Robert |date=July 2004 |title=A Place to Stand: the Problems and Potential of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group |journal=The Round Table |volume=93 |issue=375 |pages=343–53 |doi=10.1080/0035853042000249942 |s2cid=153984328 |doi-access=free }} The result of the vote (which remains secret), is said to have been thirty-six votes for McKinnon to sixteen for Sobhan, although, continuing the pattern set for Chief Emeka Anyaoku at the 1989 CHOGM, the result was announced as 'unanimous'.

{{Reflist}}

• Coauthor of [http://www.nbr.org/publications/issue.aspx?id=231 Ecological and Nontraditional Security Challenges in South Asia] (NBR Special Report, June 2011)

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Category:1940 births

Category:Living people

Category:High commissioners of Bangladesh to India

Category:High commissioners of Bangladesh to Malaysia

Category:Ambassadors of Bangladesh to China

Category:University of Dhaka alumni

Category:Members of the Dhaka Nawab family

Category:20th-century Bengalis

Category:21st-century Bengalis

Category:Khandakar family