Prime Minister Tarique Rahman presented the National Standard to seven units of the Bangladesh Army at Savar Cantonment on Sunday, recognising their contribution to professional excellence and their roles in wartime and peacetime.

The units honoured this year were the President Guard Regiment, 7 Field Regiment Artillery, 32 Field Regiment Artillery, 25 Air Defence Regiment, 9 Engineer Battalion, 56 East Bengal Regiment and 57 East Bengal Regiment. The ceremony was organised by the 9th Infantry Division.

The prime minister was given an armed salute on arrival. Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman, cabinet ministers and advisers, members of the diplomatic corps, and serving and former military officers attended.

In his address, Tarique Rahman said the strength of an armed force did not lie only in its weapons, equipment or numbers, but in discipline, skill, leadership, morality, training and public trust. He told officers and soldiers to remain committed to the Constitution, the law, military regulations and humanitarian values.

He said modern warfare increasingly involves cyberspace, outer space, drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and information-based capabilities, and that Bangladesh's defence preparedness had to keep pace. The government, he added, was working to make the forces more technology-driven, skilled and professional, and to build a domestic defence industry for weapons and equipment.

Technology could never replace people, the prime minister said, calling for an integrated defence capability in which the Army, Navy and Air Force could act together when needed.

On welfare, he said the government was giving weight to housing, healthcare, education, training and post-retirement security for military personnel. Salaries and allowances had been raised by 100 to 138 percent under the National Pay Scale, and the 'One Rank, One Pension' system was being implemented, he said.

Tarique Rahman said the army's history was bound up with the country's independence, recalling the role of Ziaur Rahman, then deputy commander of the Eighth East Bengal Regiment, in Chattogram after the crackdown of 25 March 1971 and his declaration of independence from Kalurghat radio the following week.

He said protecting national interests, sovereignty and dignity would remain a core commitment, and that Bangladesh wanted to strengthen friendship and cooperation with all countries on the basis of mutual respect and equality.