India?s obsession with the recognition of its nuclear power status at the hands of the lone superpower, United States of America, has fortunately not clouded its head over the troublesome goings-on in the Himalayan kingdom up north. Of course, it helps that the foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, was ambassador in Kathmandu before he moved to New Delhi. At the time, he knew King Gyanendra as well as the insides of the Narayanhity palace reasonably well. So when he arrived to renew his relationship with the direct incarnate of Lord Vishnu a couple of weeks ago ? and the meeting lasted some ninety minutes ? you deduced it had been a fiery one. Diplomatic, oh yes, but fiery.

India?s concerns over the situation in Nepal are well-known. Ever since emergency was imposed there on February 1, New Delhi has been irritable about the growing, if inevitable, confrontation with the monarchy. What nerve Gyanendra must have had by going the whole hog and demolishing whatever semblance of republicanism that remained after Nepal?s political parties had argued it away over the last 15 years!

Certainly, an openly feisty nation like India could not have tolerated Gyanendra?s open infringement of basic human rights. This is not to say that the government cannot work with either dictators or full-time monarchs. After all, various Indian political parties have tolerated Mamoon Abdul Gayoom?s hugely unpopular regime in the Maldives and his sham elections, worked pretty successfully within Pervez Musharraf?s reluctance to give up political power and kept its mouth shut when Myanmar?s rulers take a leaf out of Alauddin Khalji?s book.

The problem is really with Indian public opinion, which fully supports the Nepalese people?s right to fix their own destiny. And despite the monarchical stream which allows people like ?Maharani? Vasundhara Raje to keep her prefix, majoritarian India will always be uncomfortable with the Gyanendra school of thought. (To give Vasundhara Raje her due, she wouldn?t ever dream of doing a Gyanendra even in a socially backward state like Rajasthan or in her in-law country.)

According to sources close to Gyanendra, India had been deliberately closing the political space around the Narayanhity palace, thereby giving the Nepalese king little option but to strike back. The king was angry that India had stopped the supply of arms to the Nepalese army, thereby hampering his campaign against the Maoists. He had been left with no alternative but to go to China.

And therefore, the sources added, Gyanendra?s diplomatic dismissal of Manmohan Singh?s plea to put together a democratic roadmap for Nepal, when the two met in Dhaka on the sidelines of the 13th Saarc summit. So when New Delhi responded by brokering the agreement between the political parties and the Maoists in Nepal, Kathmandu sat up. On the day of the big political rally in the Nepalese capital two weeks ago, Saran flew in to Kathmandu. Two days later, the heart-to-heart with the king followed.

Even Gyanendra?s aides now admit that the ?very frank? talk with Saran may possibly constitute a turning point in Indo-Nepal relations. At the very least, it has averted the crisis that nearly destroyed the bilateral relationship in 1989. It has helped take some of the sting out of the tension that has built over the last ten months between the two capitals. And while neither protagonist walked out of the meeting hand-in-hand for the benefit of waiting journalists ? television cameras are simply too egalitarian for Narayanhity and therefore, banned ? both are said to have promised to give each other some more space in taking the relationship forward.

Indian officials have been completely tight-lipped about the conversation, because, as they argue from the towering confines of South Block, it is far too important for public consumption. Lest that sound too much like what Gyanendra?s boys are saying, New Delhi has admitted that both sides will work to put Nepal back on track. But they will not say if Gyanendra has vented any steam at the pressure India was putting on him.

And so it goes in the new year. Saran is back from the United States of America, having presented the Indian vision document on its nuclear programme, a central element of which is the separation of the civilian facilities from its military ones. Since the Americans have promised to supply nuclear fuel for the production of nuclear energy ? so as to part-feed India?s growing appetite for energy ? both sides have decided that the civilian reactors, which will receive this fuel, will be open to international inspections.

According to K. Subrahmanyam, the strategic guru and now chairman of the prime minister?s task-force on long-term policy, military reactors, such as those at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay, Kalpakkam and Mysore, could remain outside this lakshman rekha, so as to continue to produce the plutonium that makes up the nuclear arsenal. While the reactors at Narora, Kakrapar, one part of Kalpakkam and Rawatbhata, could come out of the closet.

Just as Shyam Saran was preparing to fly off to the US with his ?separation? list, the loose ends of another energy dialogue were being tied up in New Delhi. This time between the Petroleum secretaries of India and Pakistan, on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Both sides have agreed that the pipeline will be constructed and the gas will begin to flow around 2010. That puts paid to the worry that a pro-US agenda will prevent New Delhi from getting into an Iranian deal. The price of piped gas is expected to cost about 75 per cent of the liquid natural gas that India will start buying from Iran from 2009. But a major sticking point is whether Pakistan will allow Indian pipeline engineers into that country to help construct the pipeline (some 800 km through Pakistani territory and 50 km in India).

With ?energy? having occupied considerable time and space in 2005, the new year is likely be devoted to taking this forward. Such as, a trilateral meeting between India, Pakistan and Iran on the pipeline. As well as a US acknowledgement of the Indian nuclear plan, which would put into place a key milestone for the visit of the US president in February 2006.