Beginning with the Foreign Secretary-level talks in Islamabad from October 15, the composite dialogue process will resume with six meetings in New Delhi scheduled from November 5 to 13.

The agreement to pick up the threads of the official dialogue between the two countries was reached last month at a meeting that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The joint statement initialled in New York outlines a framework according to which the dialogue would commence with the Foreign Secretaries taking up the two major issues, Kashmir and peace, security and confidence building measures (CBMs) in Islamabad in mid-October, while the six remaining items would be tackled by the concerned officials of the two sides in New Delhi.

Pakistani officials will be visiting India in the firsthalf of November for the dialogue, now that the specific dates for each item on the agenda have been clinched.

The Tulbul Navigation Project or the Wullar Barrage, to be handled by the Water and Power Secretaries of the two countries, would be taken up on November 5. Defence Secretaries of the two sides will meet on November 6 for talks to end the ongoing conflict in the Siachen.

The Surveyor General and the Additional Secretary (Defence) will meet on November 9 to discuss Sir Creek. Commerce Secretaries of the two countries will explore ways and means to promote Economic and Commercial cooperation when it comes up for discussion on November 10, while Terrorism and Drug Trafficking would be taken up on November 12 by the two Home Secretaries.

On the Culture Secretaries would devolve the task of promoting friendly exchanges in various fields. Though the nitty-gritty would be left to the concerned officials, the two Foreign Secretaries would be responsible for coordinating the overall dialogueprocess.

Having grabbed world attention with their respective nuclear tests this summer, the focus of the entire international community has turned to the two hostile South Asian neighbours, urging them to re-embark on a substantial bilateral dialogue to reduce tensions in the subcontinent.

With the dust from the nuclear blasts yet to settle completely, when Vajpayee met Sharif in New York, both sides were fully aware that they had to give an impetus to the "on again, off again" character of the Indo-Pak dialogue.

In the past few years the talks had remained stymied because of Pakistan's insistence on assigning a special status to what it calls the ``core'' issue of Kashmir. This had not cut much ice in New Delhi, which feels that the dialogue between the two countries should be a comprehensive one covering all contentious issues. Islamabad wanted that a forward movement on resolving other issues be determined by progress on Kashmir.

In fact, when Pakistan's obstinacy on according priority to Kashmirhad threatened to derail the bilateral talks at the SAARC summit in Colombo in August, India had chided Islamabad for its ``neurotic obsession''.

But in the shadow of the nuclear tests, both sides appear to have realised the need for some flexibility to once again kickstart the dialogue process.

The Foreign Secretaries of the two sides, when they met in Durban last month, chalked out a formula for the future talks which was acceptable to both sides. With Kashmir and the CBMs to be taken up first, Islamabad felt it had prevailed. But with the composite nature of the dialogue where all the eight issues are accorded similar status, India is happy that it has pushed through its agenda. This calibrated schedule was signed and sealed at the Vajpayee-Sharif meeting in New York on September 23.