Independence Award
Bangladesh's highest civillian award
The Independence Award (Bengali: স্বাধীনতা পদক romanized: Swadhinata Padak, lit. "Sovereignty Medal"), formally known as the Independence Day Award or the Independence Medal, is the highest state award given by the government of Bangladesh. Introduced in 1977, this award is bestowed upon Bangladeshi citizens or organizations in recognition of substantial contributions to one of many fields, including the War of Liberation, the Language Movement, education, literature, journalism, public service, science and technology, medical science, social science, song, games and sports, fine arts, rural development, and other areas.
Each awardee receives a gold medal, a certificate of honour, and 500,000 Bangladeshi takas (US$4109). A cabinet committee on national awards prepares the list of each year's nominees and forwards the list to the head of the government for final approval. The award is traditionally presented on the eve of Independence Day in Bangladesh at a much publicized ceremony attended by several cabinet and parliament members and distinguished society guests.
In 2006, the award generated some controversy as the initial list was not accepted by the Prime Minister, some government ministers had expressed concern over the nomination of three fellow ministers. Furthermore, the award to the Rapid Action Battalion was criticized by many because of RAB's alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings.
The public source identifies “Independence Award” as bangladesh's highest civillian award. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Independence, Award and Bangladesh's.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3210297. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Independence Award” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.