Despite a clarification issued yesterday by Singh, a key aide of the Prime Minister, the fact remains that he did tell his interviewer that ``We're prepared to talk about any aspect of Kashmir but Pakistan has to be prepared to talk.'' Singh had also said that ``We have to recognise that map-making has to come to a stop in the sub-continent. If you are talking about a kind of cartographic, constant altering of the South Asian situation, that cannot take place. That is a reality...(but) this issue can be part of the agenda only if it is raised by somebody. India is not going to raise it.''

Even if Singh's comments were misinterpreted, sources in the Government as well as foreign policy analysts arewondering whether the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership is finally feeling the heat in the post-Pokharan aftermath.Coming on the eve of the encounter between Prime Ministers AB Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif at the end of July in Colombo, on the sidelines of the SAARC meeting, analysts are wondering if ``New Delhi is signalling to Pakistan as well as to the West that India is ready to make adjustments on Kashmir.''

Singh's ``comments'' are being seen as a major turnaround of the hardline BJP position on Pakistan. Even if it is argued that Singh's comments -- that India and Pakistan were willing to discuss ``any aspect of Kashmir'' -- have been standard foreign policy at least over the last decade, the point is that no public figure has at any time, since the Shimla agreement in 1972, talked of the possibility of converting the LoC into an international boundary. It has been widely rumoured that Indira Gandhi and Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, during their closed-door talks in Shimla, did discuss this subject.

But therecord of their talks has never been made public, and none of Gandhi's aides have since broken their silence. It is acknowledged that the articulate deputy chairman of the Planning Commission was sent to break the ice with Washington last month after the US' unduly strong reactions on India's nuclear tests. Interestingly, Singh will be meeting US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, again around mid-July, within a fortnight of the return of US President Bill Clinton from China.