NEW DELHI: In a negative development, India has slipped in corrupt nations list while maintaining 81st rank in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perception Index 2017. Pertinently, According to the report published in Times of India quoting a report of Transparency International release which has characterised India as “among the worst regional offenders” in the Asia Pacific region on grounds of journalists, activists, opposition leaders and even staff of law enforcement or watchdog agencies being threatened or even murdered.
While it maintained its score at 40 on a 100-point scale where anything below 30 is considered seriously corrupt, its ranking changed from 79th last year partly because Vanuatu, one of the countries added to the rankings this year, was rated higher and partly because others improved, said the report. In this, it was clubbed with the Philippines and Maldives, said the report. “These countries score high for corruption and have fewer press freedoms and higher numbers of journalist deaths,” the report quoted release of Transparency International.
Interestingly, Pakistan with a score of 32 and China with 41 are perceived to be more corrupt than India and Russia is more corrupt than all three counties with a score of 29, the report said. New Zealand and Denmark were ranked as the cleanest countries in the 2017 list as in 2016, with scores of 89 and 88, respectively, the report said. According to the Transparency International Syria, South Sudan and Somalia were ranked as the most corrupt countries with scores of 14, 12 and 9, respectively and are the three countries that were tied with India in 2016.
The analysis, which incorporates data from Committee to Protect Journalists, showed that in the last six years, 9 out of 10 journalists killings of journalists happened in countries that score 45 or less on the index, the report mentioned.