Staff Correspondent:

The government has nominated eight eminent individuals for the Independence Award-2025, in recognition of their outstanding contributions at the national level.

The official announcement regarding their nomination will be made soon, a high-level government source said on Thursday.

The nominees include commander-in-chief of the liberation war MAG Osmani, scientist Professor Jamal Nazrul Islam, BRAC founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, writer and intellectual Badruddin Umar, poet Al Mahmud, one of the designers of the central Shaheed Minar Novera Ahmed, legendary musician Azam Khan, and Abrar Fahad, a student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) who was killed by banned student organisation Chhatra League in 2019.

The Independence Award is the highest civilian honour in Bangladesh and is conferred annually by the government to individuals and institutions for their significant contributions in different fields.