This year's Ekushey Padak will go to 21 distinguished citizens of the country for outstanding contributions in their respective fields.
Four of them have been named posthumously for the prestigious annual award. Of the awardees, three are language movement veterans. The government made the announcement in an official release of the Cultural Affairs Ministry on Thursday (4th February).
Under the language and literature category, poet Quazi Rosy, Bulbul Chowdhury and writer Golam Murshid have been named for the award.
Motahar Hossain Talukder, Shamsul Haque and Afsar Uddin Ahmed were named posthumously for their contributions to the Language Movement, while Begum Papia Sarwar has been named for music, Raisul Islam Asad and Salma Begum Sujata (Sujata Azim) for acting, Ahmed Iqbal Haidar for plays, Syed Salahuddin Zaki for film, Bhashwar Bandopahdyay for recitation and Pavel Rahman for photography.
Besides, Golam Hasnayen, Fazlur Rahman Khan Faruk, Freedom Fighter Syeda Isabela (posthumous) have been chosen for their contributions to the Liberation War.
Ajay Das Gupta won the award in the field of journalism, Dr Ashim Kumar Saha in research, Begum Mahfuza Khanam in education, Dr Mirza Abdul Jalil in economics and Professor Kazi Kamruzzamn in social service.
The ‘Ekushey Padak’ is the second highest civilian award in Bangladesh, introduced in memory of the martyrs of the Bengali Language Movement of 1952. The cultural affairs ministry confers the award with a gold medal, a certificate of honour and cash.
Earlier, the government on July 20 last year sought nomination proposals for the award from all ministries, different departments, deputy commissioners, public university authorities and recipients of Swadhinata Padak and Ekushey Padak by October 15, 2020.
The award, introduced in memory of the martyrs of the language movement, is given in such categories as the Language Movement, Shilpakala (music, dance, acting and fine arts), Liberation War, journalism, research, education, science and technology, economics, social service, politics, language and literature, et cetera.
