The move followed a meeting between Sinha and Khan

India is to ease visa requirements for Pakistani children seeking medical treatment.

The announcement was made after the first meeting between Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and the new Pakistani High Commissioner in Delhi, Aziz Ahmed Khan.

A foreign ministry spokesman, Navtej Sarna, said India would also finance travel, accommodation and medical treatment for a group of 20 sick Pakistani children.

The ministry says the decision followed the positive response in India to a Pakistani baby girl who was successfully treated in an Indian hospital.

Two-year-old Noor Fatima has become the icon of renewed ties between arch rivals India and Pakistan, after undergoing open heart surgery in Bangalore.

Fatima has been in intensive care since undergoing a five-hour operation last week.

Fatima has been at the centre of a media frenzy since she was brought to India on board the freshly resumed India-Pakistan bus service last week.

The service marked a thaw in relations between the two nuclear neighbours after an 18-month stand-off.

Cash offers

Doctors in Pakistan had advised the girl's parents to take her to Bangalore for the complicated surgery because of the superior facilities there at the Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital.

Fatima on her arrival in India with her parents

The image of Fatima in her mother's arms was splashed across television channels and newspapers in India as the little girl's plight captured the imagination of many.

Hundreds of Indians have offered to donate money to help pay for Fatima's treatment, and children, social activists and ordinary people have poured into the hospital to convey their best wishes and pray for her.

Her father, Nadeem Sajjad, said the 50,000 rupees ($1,000) he received from a philanthropist towards medical expenses would be donated to a new trust.

Bus link

The Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital specialises in cardiac care for children and is the only one of its kind in South Asia.

Hospital staff say they routinely treat patients from Pakistan as well as neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Sajjads' travel to India was only made possible after the resumption of a bus service between the Pakistan city of Lahore and the Indian capital Delhi.

With rail and air services suspended, travellers had to make a long and expensive detour via Dubai to reach their destination.

The bus service was suspended after an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.

India blamed the attack on Pakistani-backed militants.