The Transparency International recently released the Corruption Perception Index. According to the index, India ranked 85 among the world countries. The report said that the score of corruption has been stagnant for India over a decade. Also, the report said, the fundamental freedoms in the country are decaying and concerns over democratic status are increasing.

About the scores used in the index

The TI included 180 countries in the ranking. The rankings were created based on the corruption in the public sector of the countries. Based on this, the Corruption Perception Index is calculated. Here zero means highly corrupt, a score of 100 means the country is clean. India scored 40.

India in the ranking

• India scored 86^th in the ranking in 2020. In 2019, India was ranked 80^th. According to the report, the journalists in India are facing severe risks. Also, the activists are becoming victims of police attacks, corrupt local officials, criminal gangs, political militants.
• The report also says that the organizations that are talking against the government are targeted with sedition, defamation, security, regulation of foreign funding, contempt of court charges and hate speeches.

Report about Pakistan

Pakistan ranked 140 in the index scoring 28. Pakistan is performing bad in the index mainly because of absence of rule of law and also state capture. In 2020, Pakistan was ranked 124. The score of Pakistan in 2020 was 31. The report comes while Imran Khan is trying to keep up his promises of making the government clean. To the contrary, Pakistan was ranking 117 during the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh scored 26 and was ranked at 147^th position.

Relative performance of India

• Around 86% of the countries showed little or no improvement since 2012. India was one among them. India was in 94^th position in 2012.
• Denmark topped the index followed by Denmark, New Zealand. Their scores were around 88.

Asia Pacific

Around 70% of the countries in the region were ranked below 50. However, the dominant players China and India scored badly. Sri Lanka was the only country whose performance did not improve as compared to 2012.

Report about the world countries

• Seychelles and Armenia made biggest improvement in increasing their scores.
• Italy, UK, Argentina, Austria, China have improved their scores.

Transparency International

It is a non – governmental organization. It was founded in 1993. Its headquarters is located tin Berlin, Germany. It works to take actions against corruption measures, prevent criminal activities. The most popular measures of Transparency International are the Corruption Perception Index and Global Corruption Barometer.