With a score of 40, India ranks at 85th position in the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), 2021. The report cites India's case as "particularly worrying".
It states "While the country’s score has remained stagnant over the past decade, some of the mechanisms that could help reign in corruption are weakening. There are concerns over the country’s democratic status, as fundamental freedoms and institutional checks and balances decay. Journalists and activists are particularly at risk and have been victims of attacks by the police, political militants, criminal gangs, and corrupt local officials. Civil society organisations that speak up against the government have been targeted with security, defamation, sedition, hate speech, contempt-of-court charges, and regulations on foreign funding."
India's neighbours Pakistan has got a score of 28 and stands at 140th position whereas Bangladesh has 26. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Singapore have also been marked as countries that have increased digital surveillance to silence those trying to hold governments accountable during the pandemic.
The countries that have fared well are Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand, each with a score of 88 followed by Norway (85), Singapore (85), Sweden (85), Switzerland (84), the Netherlands (82), Luxembourg (81) and Germany (80).
South Sudan, Syria, and Somalia with scores of 11, 13, 13, remain at the bottom of the index. According to CPI 2021, countries experiencing armed conflict or authoritarianism tend to earn the lowest scores and those include Venezuela (14), Afghanistan (16), North Korea (16), Yemen (16), Equatorial Guinea (17), Libya (17) and Turkmenistan (19).
"Despite commitments on paper, 131 countries have made no significant progress against corruption over the last decade, and this year 27 countries are at a historic low in their CPI score. Meanwhile, human rights and democracy across the world are under assault."
Coming to the Asia Pacific, New Zealand (CPI score: 88), Singapore (85) and Hong Kong (76) have been declared top performers. Three countries with some of the lowest scores in the world - Cambodia (23), Afghanistan (16), and North Korea (16) belong to this region.
The report says, from India to the Philippines to China, such leaders have been able to portray themselves as more effective than state institutions and win mandates to gain and stay in power. However, only a few of these countries have managed to make progress in controlling corruption and these gains remain fragile. Furthermore, in most countries, corruption is spreading through severe restrictions on the very civil liberties – like freedom of association and speech – which allowed people to take to the streets and call for action.
The global corruption Index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople.
