Among the three key principals, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appears daggers at New Delhi; Defence Secretary William Cohen has never warmed to South Asia; and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger is a trade lawyer whose worldview -- or lack of it -- is scoffed at by foreign policy wonks.

In the second tier, UN ambassador-turned-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is still smarting from what he perceives as the Bharatiya Janata Party Government's duplicity about the tests; the new UN envoy Richard Holbrooke is known as the raging bull who cows down everyone in sight; and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin is too busy with the yen, yin and yang of Japan and China to care too much about New Delhi.

That leaves India with precisely one ally. A First Friend. Indeed, ever since India's nuclear tests convulsed the world, President Clinton isabout the only US leader who has taken a relatively mild, pragmatic stand about the event, even to the extent of outlining New Delhi's rationale for going nuclear and suggesting the world ought to appreciate India's security concerns.

Of course, he has never wavered from the bottomline that New Delhi made a terrible mistake in conducting the tests and is plainly wrong in trying to blast its way into the nuclear club.

But more than any other administration official, it is Clinton who has assuaged the daily scolding by the workaday mandarins with often lavish praise of India's democratic trappings, its economic potential, the skill of its people, and its civilisational moorings. By one count, Clinton has made at least six references to India's ``greatness'' and ``potential'' even while slamming New Delhi for crossing the nuclear rubicon. And it is only after his persistent tempering of remarks with the soothing balm of praise that his underlings have also somewhat softened their attitude.

Now, as the dustfrom the nuclear tests settles down literally and metaphorically, it transpires that the President himself is setting the tone to move from reproach to rapprochement.

That much is evident from the remarks National Security Adviser Sandy Berger made to editors and reporters of the Washington Post last Wednesday.

``Listen to the President as he talked about the tests,'' the Post quoted Berger as telling its staff. ``He talked about the greatness of India and potential of India and the tremendous benefits that could come from a closer relationship with India...I don't want to lose sight and the President does not want to lose sight of the opportunity after the Cold War to develop a fitting relationship with the world's largest democracy.''

Such gradual -- and still developing -- change of mindset has also been accompanied by an increasingly introspective tone in both the media and in policy circles as to why the US is kowtowing China, a Communist country with a long history of proliferation, while beatingup on India, a democracy with a spotless record of non-proliferation.

The argument was first made by New York Times columnist Abe Rosenthal but has since gathered momentum, being expounded in the US legislature last week by Senator Connie Mack. More newspaper columnists and lawmakers have since picked up the tack, including those who previously saw no merit at all in India's argument about its security concerns.

``The United States is pummeling a friendly democratic country, India, which is not known ever to have committed the cardinal nuclear-club sin of helping another country enter the magic circle. At the same time it is cultivating an ambiguously situated, unambiguously undemocratic country, China, even offering it privileged access to nuclear technologies barred to the Indians. It is making this opening to a Chinese leadership that helped Pakistan go nuclear and that at best has an improving but still problematic attitude to nonproliferation,'' the Washington Post's key editorial writer on SouthAsia, Stephen Rosenfeld wrote on Friday, while arguing that India still was not entitled to a place in the nuclear club.

Clinton's sentiment for India predates the nuclear tests. In fact, in one interview several weeks before the tests when the air was thick with preparations for the President's visit to the subcontinent, a senior administration official told this correspondent that much of the administration's recent focus on South Asia stemmed from the Clinton's personal directive.

Now, officials say the President is still interested in going to South Asia despite his deep disappointment at the nuclear tests. But there is no way he will go if the visit does not accomplish anything.

While the President himself appears to be signalling a long-term look at the region despite his immediate preoccupation with China and aggravating remarks about the role Beijing can play in Indo-Pak disputes, his senior officials are also applying the anodyne even as they announce the sanctions. Within the administration,the Post reported on Sunday, realisation is growing that if relations are to be repaired, India's position may have to be accommodated.

``The United States has a very, very high regard for India. India has been a friend of the US for a lot longer than other states in the region, including very large states in the region. We want to see India prosper and thrive and attain its aspirations for itself in the next century,'' Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott said on Thursday even as he detailed the sanctions.

Another unnamed senior administration official was quoted as telling the Post, ``We agree that they will be an important global power in the 21st century. We are trying assiduously to take into account the Indian world view.''