Mansingh is the first career diplomat ever to be sent to London. He succeeds former foreign secretary Salman Haidar, whose appointment in December by the UF government had become a controversial issue since Haidar took over his new job after that government was reduced to caretaker status.

Mansingh's posting to London is seen here as ``compensation'' for losing the race for becoming India's next foreign secretary, a job that is widely believed will now go to Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, who is number two in the IFS hierarchy. Dasgupta is currently accredited to Brussels as ambassador.

Postings to London, Washington and Moscow, post World War II centres of international realpolitik, have usually been reserved in the IFS for political appointees. Moscow was unusualin that the ambassador to the former Soviet Union, a career diplomat or otherwise, was one who had the ear of the prime minister.