Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board

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Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board
Formation1978
Headquarters Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
Region served
Bangladesh
Official language
Bengali
Chairman
Supradip Chakma
Main organ
Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs
Website www.chtdb.gov.bd

The Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board was a government agency established in 1978 by the then-President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman in response to the rise of the Shanti Bahini insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of eastern Bangladesh. Currently Supradip Chakma, [1] is the Chairman of this development board.

Contents

History

Headed by an army general, the board was formed to provide special attention and administer the issues of the Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict. The board was formed in 1976 through the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board Ordinance. [2]

The first chairman from civil administration is Bir Bahadur Ushwi Sing, an MP of Bangladesh Parliament who was elected from Bandarban constituency and the current State Minister, Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs. He was appointed in 1996. Later in 2002 Wadud Bhuiyan, the former member of the parliament from Khagrachari constituency, was appointed as chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board. In 2009, Bir Bahadur was appointed again as the chairman of this agency. [3] Afterwards Naba Bikram Kishore Tripura was the chairman of the board in 2013 and served till 2021. [4]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chittagong Hill Tracts</span> Region in southeastern Bangladesh

The Chittagong Hill Tracts, often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeastern Bangladesh, bordering India and Myanmar (Burma). Covering 13,295 square kilometres (5,133 sq mi), they formed a single district until 1984, when they were divided into three districts: Khagrachari District, Rangamati Hill District, and Bandarban District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chakma people</span> Ethnic group from the Indian subcontinent

The Chakma people, are an ethnic group from the eastern-most regions of the Indian subcontinent. They are the largest ethnic group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of southeastern Bangladesh, and the second-largest in Mizoram, India. Other places in Northeast India also have significant Chakma populations. Around 60,000 Chakma people live in Arunachal Pradesh, India; a first generation migrated there in 1964 after the construction of the Kaptai Dam forced them off their lands. Another 79,000 Chakmas live in Tripura, India, and 20,000-30,000 in Assam, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shanti Bahini</span> Armed wing

The Shanti Bahini was the armed wing of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti in Bangladesh. It is considered an insurgent group in Bangladesh. The Shanti Bahini was made out of mostly members from the Chakma tribe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti</span> Bangladeshi political party

The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti is a political party formed to represent the people and indigenous tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1972, the PCJSS has fought for autonomy and the recognition of the ethnic identity and rights of the indigenous tribes of the Hill Tracts. Its military arm, the Shanti Bahini was used to fight government forces and Bengali settlers in the Hill Tracts. A peace accord was signed in 1997 led to the disarmament of the Shanti Bahini and enabled the PCJSS to return to mainstream politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bandarban District</span> District in Chittagong Division, Bangladesh

Bandarban is a district in South-Eastern Bangladesh, and a part of the Chittagong Division. It is one of the three hill districts of Bangladesh and a part of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the others being Rangamati District and Khagrachhari District. Bandarban district (4,479 km2) is not only the most remote district of the country, but also the least populous. There is an army contingent at Bandarban Cantonment.

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Chakma language is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Chakma and Daingnet people. The language has common features with other languages in the region like the Chittagonian, Tanchangya, Arakanese and others. It is spoken by around 380,000 people. 150,000 of these are in southeast Bangladesh, primarily the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and another 230,000 in India, including 97,000 in Mizoram, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. It is written using the Chakma script, but literacy in this script is low.

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Manabendra Narayan Larma, also known as M.N. Larma, was a Jumma Chakma politician and Member of Parliament of Bangladesh. A leading proponent of the rights of the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, he was the founding leader of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti and its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini.

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The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord was a peace agreement signed between the Government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, the political organisation that controlled the Shanti Bahini militia on 2 December 1997. The accord allowed for the recognition of the rights of the peoples and tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts region and ended the decades-long insurgency between the Shanti Bahini and government forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanchangya people</span>

The Tanchangya people or Tanchangyas are an indigenous ethnic group living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, Indian states of Tripura and Mizoram, and Rakhine state of Myanmar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict</span> Conflict between the Bangladeshi government and tribal insurgents

The Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict was a political and armed conflict between the government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti and its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, over the issue of autonomy and the land rights of Jumma people, mainly for Chakma people and the other indigenous of Chittagong Hill Tracts. Shanti Bahini launched an insurgency against government forces in 1977, when the country was under military rule, and the conflict continued for twenty years until the government and the PCJSS signed the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord in 1997.

United People's Democratic Front is a regional political party based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Chakmas form the majority ethnic group in the party. The United People's Democratic Front claims to seek a fully autonomous Hill Tracts through peaceful and democratic means. However, many of its members are armed and have expressed violent Buddhist extremist behaviour.

The Tanchangya language is one of the eleven indigenous languages in Chittagong Hill Tracts in present-day Bangladesh, and an ethnic group in the Indian states of Tripura and Mizoram, as well as Rakhine State in Myanmar. It is categorized as an Indo-Aryan language, despite some scholars having the opinion of it being Tibeto-Burman language. It is closely related to Chakma and Chittagonian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military awards and decorations of Bangladesh</span>

The Bangladesh Armed Forces award medals and their associated ribbon bars in recognition of various levels of service, personal accomplishments and commemorative events while a regular serviceperson is a member of the Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy and the Bangladesh Air Force. Together with military badges, such awards are a means to outwardly display the highlights of a serviceperson's career.

Wadud Bhuiyan is a Bangladeshi politician. Bhuiyan was elected twice as the member of the Jatiya Sangsad from Khagrachari constituency respectively in the 6th and 8th National Parliamentary Elections. In addition, he served as Chairman of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board from 2002 to 2006. He currently holds the posts of assistant employment secretary of Central Executive Committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and president of the opposition party's Khagrachari local unit as well.

RajmataBenita Roy was a Bangladeshi aristocrat, litterateur, diplomat and minister. She was the forty-ninth Rani of the Chakma Circle in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Roy served as the Rajmata during the kingship of Tridev Roy and Debashish Roy. She was a member of Bangladesh's first delegation to the UN General Assembly in 1972. She was a minister in the Bangladeshi government from 1975 to 1978.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts lies in the south-eastern part of Bangladesh adjoining international boundaries with Myanmar on the southeast, the Indian states of Tripura on the north and Mizoram on the east. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, formally a single unified district was divided into three separate districts: Khagrachari, Bandarban, and Rangamati during the administrative reorganization in 1984.

Bir Bahadur Ushwe Sing is a Bangladesh Awami League politician and the minister of Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs since 2019. He is from Bandarban district and was elected as a member of parliament, from the constituency 300. Bandarban for the 6th time in the 11th parliamentary election. He has also served as the State Minister of the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts(2014-2018).

Task Force on Rehabilitation of India-returnee Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons is a Bangladesh government task force established to rehabilitate refugees from the Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict following the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord.

Naba Bikram Kishore Tripura is one of the prominent government official who holds different position during his government service holder. He was the Chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board. He served as Secretary of Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs from 2011 to 2018.. He served As an Ambassador at Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Bangladesh) from 2010 to 2011. Before that, he was holding the position of Additional Inspector General. of Bangladesh Police which is the Second in Command on Bangladesh Police.

References

  1. "Nikhil Kumar Chakma elected as chairman of CHT Development Board". 7 July 2021.
  2. "JS makes new law for CHT development". The Daily Star. 3 July 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  3. HighBeam
  4. Correspondent, A. A. "Tripura made CHT Dev Board chief again | The Asian Age Online, Bangladesh". The Asian Age. Retrieved 28 September 2022.