The flagship programme of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme will get a further boost with the government deciding to increase the number of Anganwadis to 14 lakhs from the existing 10 lakh. The Ministry of Women and Child Development has decided to expand and universalize the scheme to provide supplementary nutrition, immunization and pre-school education to the children in the age group of three to six years at Anganwadis. Nutritional support and referral medical services are available to pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls also at Anganwadis.The scheme is one of the world's largest programmes for early child development. It provides an integrated package of services in a convergent manner for holistic development of the child. As per 2001 census, there are 157.86 million children constituting 15.42 per cent of the India's ICDS Scheme.

Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)
The second BIMSTEC summit on November 13 saw leaders from Bhutan, India, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh pledging to cooperate on several key issues affecting the region for mutual benefit. The summit also gave BIMSTEC a more comprehensive and detailed role with a joint declaration by the leaders to cooperate in areas like agriculture, climate, technology, poverty, food security, transport, crime and terrorism, culture, tourism and energy.
On Bhutan’s role in BIMSTEC, Lyonchen Jigmi Y Thinley said, “Bhutan stands not only to benefit but can also contribute for the overall development of the region and that is why we’ve become a member. May I assure you that, small as we are, we’ve been taking part and contributing in taking decisions, making policies and other ideas that BIMSTEC pursues,” he said.
The summit finalised a BIMSTEC cultural industries commission and BIMSTEC cultural industries observatory in Bhutan, a BIMSTEC energy centre in India, BIMSTEC weather and climate centre in India. The BIMSTEC convention on international terrorism, transnational organised crime and illicit drug trafficking was also finalised.
The body also took note of the progress made so far on negotiations for goods in the BIMSTEC free trade area and asked the trade negotiating bodies to conclude negotiations soon so that an agreement can be finalised at the earliest. The free trade agreement was one of the main underlying emphasis of the summit.
An important decision of the summit would be to establish a permanent secretariat for BIMSTEC for which a joint working group has been set to do the groundwork.
‘Climate Change’ has been introduced as a new 14th priority area, in addition to the existing areas of cooperation. The gathering also agreed to strengthen cooperation in poverty alleviation in the context of food security and made a proposal to establish a BIMSTEC poverty alleviation centre in Bangladesh and a food security reserve among BIMSTEC members.
The gathering also agreed to improve intra BIMSTEC tourism and the proposal of a BIMSEC tourism centre in Nepal will be discussed. Another proposal was to set up a BIMSTEC technology transfer facility in Sri Lanka to help in the sharing of technologies targeted towards micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the region.
BIMSTEC acknowledged the transport infrastructure and logistics study by ADB as an important first step to improve transportation and communications linkages within the region by identifying bottlenecks and overcoming them.
The countries agreed to cooperate in the area of energy and hold the second energy minister’s conference in 2009. Most leaders stressed the importance of developing energy sources like hydropower.
In the field of technology, India announced 150 new scholarships to facilitate the sharing of technical knowhow in the region. The body also agreed to cooperate in the area of traditional medicine by proposing to set up a BIMSTEC network of national centres of coordination in traditional medicine. BIMSTEC agreed to enhance collaborative efforts to jointly face the current global financial crisis.
The organisation will also be looking into enhancing people to people contacts and let India take the lead in establishing a BIMSTEC network of policy thinktanks in the region.
BIMSTEC is a regional body set up in 1997 whose main purpose is to serve as a link between South Asia and South East Asia for better trade, transport and overall development in the region. Bhutan has become a member in 2004 and is the lead country for culture. The total GDP of the area is 1.7 trillion dollars.
Meanwhile, Lyonchhen Jigmi Y Thinley met the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the summit and also paid a courtesy call on President Pratibha Patil.