This was the first sign of life from a moribund government in a long time. It has become quite unusual to see the ruling Nepali Congress being proactive: and there it was the government meeting a longstanding Maoist precondition for talks by releasing the names and whereabouts of their captured comrades as a prelude to releasing them. Suddenly, there are fresh hopes for talks again. "We've done everything needed to create an appropriate environment for talks," Ram Chandra Poudel said on Tuesday. "I've made the request, they now have to establish contact."

The 300-plus names on the list include those under preventive detention and in jail. But conspicuous by his absence is well-known Maoist Danda Pani Neupane. The government explanation is that those not on the list could be those arrested under aliases, or unidentified rebels killed in 'encounters', or those killed by the Maoists themselves in internal purges. (The government has also asked that the rebels reveal the whereabouts of 131 people abducted by the Maoists.)

The government move follows close on the heels of the announcement of the Maoists' new Prachanda Path doctrine that lays down a new direction in their revolution that many saw as a mellowing of their previous hardline position. The government had to respond, and what better than to make public this list. For his part, Poudel admitted he couldn't figure out Chairman Prachanda: "We see confusion in Maoist thinking, they have to be clear about their position for talks. Sugar-coated words alone will not do." Depending on how the Maoists respond to this government overture, the plan is to have informal meetings to iron out preliminaries like logistics, naming of delegates and deciding the agenda. That would lead to round two-of real political bargaining.

Human rights groups have named a team of five consisting of Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Daman Nath Dhungana, Sindhu Nath Pyakurel, Sudip Pathak and Gauri Pradhan to facilitate peace talks. But no one has any illusions that the negotiations will be long and arduous, and will probably be accompanied by some escalation in violence. "I sense better preparedness in the government, which is a positive sign," says Gopal Siwakoti Chintan, a human rights activist and lawyer. "At best they may meet and agree on a code of conduct for conducting the insurgency and counter-insurgency. Politically the two sides are still poles apart."

Going by Prachanda Path, the Maoists now want an all-party interim government to rewrite the constitution. That would integrate them into the power structure, giving more say in whatever happens thereafter. It is unlikely the government will agree to that because it says Nepal's constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy are non-negotiable. While some see the demand for an interim government as softening of the earlier Maoist stand, the new Maoist doctrine adds an "armed mass struggle" to its strategy. Some analysts read this as a classic Maoist "hammer-and-anvil" plan to spread chaos and confusion in urban areas, forcing the government to spread its forces more thinly. Adding an urban insurrection to its rural base areas would make a deadly combination that could be used as a bargaining chip to push through its demands for constitutional change.

The official toll: 1563 dead-1018 Maoists, 278 civilians, and 267 police personnel.