And even as the tremors subsided somewhat -- the Sensex fell 30 points immediately on the Reuters bulletin - following Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha's clarification that the Insurance Bill was definitely going to be tabled in the current session of Parliament, the 400-odd investors at the World Economic Forum were left with an uneasy feeling that things weren't quite right.

More so, when what followed, and even preceded this, was a virtual slanging match, with Indian officials keen to present their side of things, while brushing aside the investors views.

An obviously irritated Sinha, for example, argued that investors, especially the foreign ones, werebeing unrealistic and didn't appreciate what had been done by the country.

While the legendary Percy Barnevik who controls companies such as ABB, Saab, Astra, Ericsson and Electrolux had argued that India shouldn't be complacent especially since some south-east Asian countries had already begun to recover from their collapse, Sinha countered with: ``You want the silence of the graveyard, with everything laid out for the next 20 years.

That's not going to happen, this is a democracy. What I can promise you though, is that there will be no reversal of policies by any government.'' Given that this statement came in the wake of the continuing uncertainty over the Insurance Bill, obviously not too many were convinced -- around 35 bills are still pending before Parliament, including important ones such as the Companies Bill (pending for five years) and the FEMA and Money Laundering ones.

The Insurance Bill itself has run into problems with Khurana saying initially that it was not on the government's prioritylist of bills, and later retracting his statement -- and, at the World Economic Forum, Kumaramangalam told reporters that there was no way that the bill would be passed in the current session, and would just be referred to the select committee of Parliament.

. Interestingly, sources in the PMO have been saying that the Finance Ministry has not even cleared the Insurance Bill so far, and that Sinha called a meeting of his senior officers yesterday to do this. What's worse, Sinha, among others, continued to tout the old self-congratulatory argument of how India's cautious policies had helped it escape the collapse of south-east Asia - the same argument was dished out at last year's World Economic Forum by Prime Minister Gujral, even though the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram himself had said it was incorrect. Said Barnevik: ``I keep hearing that India's slow policy helped avoid the south-east Asian problem. I don't mind increasing 500 per cent, and then losing 100 per cent,'' in an obvious reference tohow south-east Asian countries grew rapidly over the past couple of decades, before their current collapse. And, as David Eldon, CEO of Hongkong Bank pointed out, both Thailand and Korea are once again beginning to attract investors all over again. Investor confidence surveys also point to this emerging trend in other words, India may just be losing out from the window of opportunity created by the south-east Asian collapse.

Earlier, Peter Wagner of the consulting firm A T Kearney poked fun at the government's disinvestment process saying that the mindset seemed right but the heart wasn't in it, and there certainly weren't enough hands monitoring the process of disinvestment. Though Sinha countered this by pointing out that it was the BJP which had the courage to close down sick PSUs, it should be pointed out (The Indian Express, November 30) that close to a month after the Cabinet agreed to close down eight such units, the PMO has still not cleared this file!

What makes this investor disappointmentworse, is that the three-day meet began with fairly high hopes -- regulars such as Barnevik continue to say that the BJP has unleashed a whole host of welcome economic reforms. What they continue to point out, and what the government continued to brush off, was that what is of essence now is implementing these reforms.