A cabinet meeting, chaired by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, decided on Monday to honour distinguished foreign nationals
and organisations for their ‘outstanding and extraordinary’ contribution to Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971.
They would be honoured during the celebration of 40th anniversary of independence in 2011, the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Aprzad told reporters after the meeting.
He said that the cabinet also approved a proposal of hosting a reception in their honour during next year’s independence anniversary celebrations.
The cabinet, he said, directed the concerned ministries to take the initiative to invite the personalities, who include politicians, state leaders, writers and intellectuals to the reception to be accorded them during the next year’s celebration of independence anniversary.
It also decided, he said, to give posthumous awards to the distinguished foreign personalities, who are no more there, in recognition of their contribution.
Azad said that their next of kin would be invited to collect the posthumous awards.
Asked about the number of foreign personalities to be honoured on March 26, 2011, he said a committee comprising officials from the ministries of liberation war affairs and foreign affairs was preparing the list.
The cabinet also approved the draft of a plant quarantine bill, containing stipulations for punishments, for legislation by parliament before the current year runs out.
The agriculture ministry placed the bill before the cabinet, proposing a penalty of Tk one lakh and two years of imprisonment for importing plants, injurious to human health, plants and the environment.
‘We have incorporated provisions for punishment in the proposed quarantine law to check import of plants which could spread diseases and pose a threat to our environment,’ agriculture secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed told New Age.
He described the existing law as ‘outdated and ineffective’ lacking the provisions for punishment.
