After having being marginalised from Afghan affairs for several years despite its long-term historical and cultural links with the region, and having ignored or underplayed the disruptive role of the events in Afghanistan, India is now trying to regroup and refocus attention on what is universally seen as a fundamentalist tinderbox.

Towards this end, Indian External Affairs Ministry officials, Alok Prasad and Vivek Katju, are holding extensive talks with US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Rick Inderfurth and other American officials on New Delhi's perception of the events in the troubled country and its fallout on India.

US officials emphasised that the meeting took place at the request of the Indian Government and initially described it as a routine dialogue on a broadrange of issues that included Afghanistan.

But following the Indian officials first round meeting with Assistant Secretary Inderfurth and delegation-level talks, a State Department spokesperson said much of the talks focussed on the continuing instability in Afghanistan.

While reports about the two sides agreeing on pushing for a more broad-based Government in place of the Taliban regime appeared a trifle premature, one US official acknowledged that the talks reviewed the ground situation in Afghanistan including the recent and prospective UN action in the country.

Indian officials also briefed US interlocutors, including American counter-terrorism experts, on the fallout of the events in Afghanistan on India, including the export of fundamentalism and terrorism.

The Indian team was briefing White House and National Security Council officials, including the Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg, on Friday. The team is also expected to meet Department of Defence officials before wrapping itup with another meeting with Inderfurth.

India's sudden activism on Afghanistan has much to do with the events in Kargil which brought into sharp focus the reach and influence of the fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan. New Delhi's diffidence -- which has extended to not making the hosting by Pakistan in Karachi of India's most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim -- has resulted in it being completely side-lined in the world community's deliberations on Afghanistan.

The UN Security Council is expected to deliberate extensively on Afghanistan and consider a series of measures against the Taliban regime when it meets later this month. While Pakistan is seeking to put India on the mat over the Kashmir issue, New Delhi has decided to broaden the debate by bringing to the attention of the world Islamabad is backing of the barbaric regime in Kabul and its sponsorship of terrorism through camps and madrassas.