India up 9 spots, 76th in global graft index

Observing that India’s leaders “are falling short of their bold promises”, corruption watchdog Transparency International on Wednesday said the index of corruption in the government for 2015 remained unchanged from the previous year.

India’s score on the corruption scale of 100 remained unchanged at 38 even as it moved up nine positions in the list of 168 nations, the latest report of the Transparency International said.

India has been ranked 76th in the index list which is topped by Denmark with a score of 91, according to the International Corruption Perceptions Index 2015. India’s ranking in the list of 168 countries marks an improvement by nine points as its position in 2014 was 85.

However, its score on the scale of 100 remained unchanged at 38 as in the previous year when 174 nations had been assessed.

A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). A country’s rank indicates its position relative to the other countries in the index.

Analysing the results, the Transparency International said, “The public desire for change is huge. In India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, we’ve seen a host of governments coming to power on anti-corruption platforms.

“As corruption continues to dominate media coverage across and beyond the region, increasing interest in the issue has sparked a raft of new research into both public and private sector corruption.”

It, however, added that “in India and Sri Lanka, leaders are falling short of their bold promises, while governments in Bangladesh and Cambodia are exacerbating corruption by clamping down on civil society.”

Along with India, Thailand, Brazil, Tunisia, Zambia and Burkina Faso are also ranked 76th in the latest index.

Among the regional countries, the report ranks Bhutan much ahead of India at 27th position with a score of 65. However, China was ranked at 83rd position with a score of 37, Pakistan much below at 117th position with a score of 30 and Bangladesh at 139th position with a score of 25.

The index was prepared by using data from institutions including the World Bank, the African Development Bank.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, “a failure to tackle corruption is feeding ongoing vicious conflicts, while China’s prosecutorial approach isn’t bringing sustainable remedy to the menace,” the Transparency International report said.