Derek Fatchett, minister of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will represent his country at the European Union foreign ministers' troika meeting with New Delhi on November 13.

The British, with an eye on India's ongoing dialogue with the US and now France, have stepped up their diplomatic efforts to improve relations. India's new envoy to the UK Lalit Mansingh hardly waited to receive his credentials and the PM's special envoy Jaswant Singh was evidently feted during a stopover in London recently.

Fatchett is in fact said to be flying in a couple of days before the EU-India meeting to have talks with New Delhi. The bad blood dates at least from the Queen of England's visit last year, when her foreign secretary Robin Cook's remarks on Kashmir were seen by New Delhi as ``public meddling'' in Kashmir. And afterthe nuclear tests, London was seen by New Delhi to have gone out of its way to criticise India, at international fora like the Security Council, the P-5 and the G-8.

But only five months later, New Delhi's diplomatic isolation seems to be ending, with formal dialogue having begun with two P-5 nations, the United States and France. Boris Yeltsin of Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, is coming here from December 6-8.

Western diplomats here say that the EU decision to go ahead with its ministerial meeting is an indication that they want to ``get on with the relationship'' despite India's nuclear status. Formally, the EU cannot dissociate itself from its resolutions against India's tests. But privately, diplomats say they appreciate New Delhi's arms control initiatives, multilaterally as well as with Pakistan.

It has helped, too, that Austria and not Britain is the current president of the EU.