See through our eyes, not your ears.

India ranks 84th in Global Corruption Index

NEW DELHI — India boasts some of the world’s largest markets yet they are
regarded by their peers as among the most corrupt when doing business abroad. Thirty per cent of the respondents in Transparency International’s 2008 Bribe Payers Index indicated that companies from India are likely to bribe low-level public officials in order to ‘speed things up’.

India’s Integrity Score stands at 3.4, an indication that in terms of public sector corruption, the country continues to be perceived as highly corrupt by experts and business surveys.

India was ranked 84 out of 180 countries, by Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2009. With the exception of Bhutan, which has a score of 5.0, India with 3.4 is still at the top of all the South Asian countries.

Nearly half out of 180 countries have scored three or even lower points; a clear indication that corruption is perceived to be rampant. The bottom five nations were Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq, while the cleanest countries with ranking close to perfect 10 were New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore.

Pakistan, with a ranking of 139, is perceived to be more corrupt than India by global corruption watchdog Transparency International in its latest survey of 180 countries. China, which was ranked a joint 72nd with India in 2007, has improved its corruption perception. It is ranked 79th and its integrity score is 3.6.

The vast majority of the 180 countries included in the 2009 index score below five on a
scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of
corruption). The CPI measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in a given
country and is a composite index, drawing on 13 different expert and business surveys.

Transparency International has found that a strong correlation between corruption and
poverty continues to exist, jeopardizing the global fight against poverty and threatening to
derail the UN Millennium Development Goals.