India shows no improvement in global corruption index, ranked 76

In what could be seen as a bad news for the Indian government trying to project a clean image and a corruption free administration, not much has changed on the corruption front in Asia’s second largest economy, according to an international global corruption index. Showing no sign of visible improvement in the global corruption index, India retained its same position in the ranking as in the previous year. The Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), which is known as the world’s corruption watchdog, has put India at the rank of 76 out of 168 countries in its latest Corruption Perception Index. India’ 2015 corruption perception score remains the same as 2014 which was 38/100. This  showed a lack of improvement. India shares its rank along with six other countries: Brazil, Burkina Faso, Thailand, Tunisia and Zambia. In a consolation for India,  China fared worse than India and Brazil at rank 83 with a score of 37. Pakistan was the only country among the SAARC countries, to have improved its score in 2015.  However, its rank still remains poor at 117. For Brazil major scandals such as the state oil giant Petrobras involving massive kick-backs have resulted in the country’s rankings plunging sharply in 2015. For Malaysia it was allegations of graft surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Mr Razak’s alleged involvement  has also been cited as an instance of why Malaysia  scored poorly at 50 over its last year’s score of 52. Denmark, Finland and Sweden topped the chart with their clean public sectors as in previous years, while strife-torn and repressive countries such as Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia form the bottom rung.