It was much easier to raise money last year

Tata Steel (TISC.BO) made a $13 billion bid for Corus, the country's biggest foreign buy A trillion-dollar economy grew at nearly 9 percent. India won its first major international cricket cup in 25 years.Many people are still bullish about India in the long term.But these new insecurities may impact on the economy, where there are signs investors are reeling back from ambitious plans, to politics, where growing insecurity among voters could add to the unpredictability of general elections due by early May.Take politics. The Congress-led coalition government is battling the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The insecurity bodes badly for Congress in its hopes to retain power.

But that insecurity could push voters to a "third front," smaller regional parties with charismatic but controversial leaders - like "Queen of Dalits" Mayawati - that send shivers down many investors."Anyone in power in India has to be worried," said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan "Indians walk on very thin ice There is no social security, job security. A third force may be able to take advantage of this insecurity.The decision of Tata Motors to pull out of West Bengal state in October after farmer protests against a factory for its low cost Nano, billed the world's cheapest car, also shocked India. Industrial output fell for the first time in 13 years in October.After a six-year bull run, stocks fell more than 50 percent in 2008, its worst slump ever, and 17 IPOs worth more than $10 billion were withdrawn in 2008, Thomson Reuters data showed."Once rosy, the same project is now seen as risky," said Saumitra Chaudhuri, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. It was much easier to raise money last year."Foreign investors are also cautious.

Many executives, already having trouble amid a credit crunch persuading their CEOs to invest in India, have postponed meetings since Mumbai.Other Indians are waiting for the first quarter to see if hotels get packed, the norm during one of the most popular times to do business in India because of the temperate climate.For some, the risks are creeping up."India's low-cost advantage is well preserved at this time. It's still an attractive investment destination," said Bundeep Singh Rangar, chairman of IndusView Advisors, an India-focused M&A firm based in London:"But no matter how great the cost advantage is, if safety and reputation are suspect, then that's not good. We've also got a critical election coming up, and often political goals don't match economic goals.""You've got a downturn, terrorism and scandal ... SINGAPORE (Reuters) - When it comes to corporate fraud scandals, nowhere is safe.

Deals Hot Stocks ChinaRevelations of a $1 billion fraud at Indian IT firm Satyam Computer Services (SATY.BO) do not point to a higher systemic risk of accounting scandals in India, or even in emerging markets versus the developed economies, governance experts say.With a global financial crisis ruthlessly exposing wrongdoing that would be easier to hide in less stormy conditions, more major frauds are likely to come to light this year. To predict where, traditional analysis of governance offers little help.Most attempts to measure and compare corporate governance and regulatory quality among countries show standards far higher in richer countries than the developing world.The World Bank's annual World Governance Indicators rate U.S regulatory quality at 90.8 out of 100. India is rated 46.1 below South Korea (78.6), Malaysia (67.0) and Thailand (56.3) but above China (45.6), Indonesia (43.7) and Vietnam (35.9).Assessing the integrity of accounting practices, the Economist Intelligence Unit gives India a rating of 2 on a scale of 0 to 4, where 0 is the best. That puts it above China, the Philippines and Vietnam, rated 3, and Indonesia, rated 4.The apparent message from these rankings is that a corporate scandal in India was hardly unexpected, but that other emerging Asian economies are even more vulnerable and investors in China and Indonesia have plenty of reasons to be worried.STATE CAPTURE AND LEGAL CORRUPTIONYet this is only part of the story. If cooking the books is more common in countries with poor governance rankings, nobody told the world's corrupt executives.