External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh will travel extensively -- from Sri Lanka to Geneva to Mozambique to Bhutan -- in the next three weeks, where he will meet his counterparts. He will also address the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva and a ministerial delegation of key Indian Ocean Rim nations in Maputo.

The CD address on March 25 is considered significant because it has many firsts to its credit: It is the first time that as a nuclear power, New Delhi will put forth its point of view on disarmament to the world body dealing with the issue. It is the first time -- in ten years -- that an Indian foreign minister will do so. (The last time around, it was Rajiv Gandhi's minister of state for external affairs K Natwar Singh, in 1989).

On March 24, Singh will address the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where he is expected to defendIndia's civilisational ``passion for tolerance''. From Geneva, Singh flies to Maputo, Mozambique for a biannual meeting of the seven nations that make up the Indian Ocean Rim grouping. On his return, Singh will go to Bhutan.

But Singh's journey actually begins in Sri Lanka next week, in a beautiful hillside resort called Nuwara Eliya -- the place where, in the Ramayana, Sita was kept by her abductor Ravana.

Th place will play host to the SAARC foreign ministers' meeting from March 17 to 19, where Singh will also hold bilateral talks. The media will keenly watch his meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, with both sides expected to announce a series of measures aimed at moving the ``Lahore process'' forward.

Singh's encounter with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar is being viewed as a test of New Delhi's credentials. With India having signed a free trade treaty with Colombo only in late December, there are rumours that India has put tea and rubber on the `negative list',thereby angering the Sri Lankans and jeopardising the treaty.

The double address in Geneva is Singh's official entree onto the world stage. The Human Rights Commission is an annual jamboree, where in the past India and Pakistan have traded human rights charges against each other. This year, Amnesty International's annual report names Pakistan for instigating terrorism in the Kashmir Valley. New Delhi, on its part, is preparing itself for criticism, including on the recent attacks against Christians.

Singh's address at the CD, nine months after India's nuclear tests, will talk about how the world has to move towards a ``genuine and total elimination'' of weapons of mass destruction and reflect upon how it will do so in the new millennium. In the last couple of years, India has been on top of the CD's agenda, having first refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and then attempting to block it in New York.

The agenda at the IOR meeting in Maputo is not to encourage expansion by allowing incountries like Pakistan and France (which has applied for membership on the basis of the fact that Seychelles, an island in the Indian Ocean, remains a `department' of France), but first consolidate the gains of the grouping.

Early next month, Singh takes off for Central Asia -- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, including the ancient city of Khiva -- en route to Moscow. There are also plans to visit Beijing. But before that, the bilateral Joint Working Group is tentatively scheduled before the onset of summer.