India slips on global corruption index

India fell two spots to number 81 on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index 2017, that scores countries on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.

The Berlin-based NGO analyses corruption levels around the world, and looks at how they relate to civil liberties, specifically, the ability of citizens to speak out. The results continue to be dismal this year as the index shows that most countries are making little or no effort to end corruption.

“More than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of 43. Unfortunately, compared to recent years, this poor performance is nothing new,” it says.

The index uses a scale of 0 to 100—0 denotes most corrupt. The organisation, that started 25 years ago, says well-designed laws alone are not enough to curb corruption.

“Corrupt individuals have proven very adept at finding ways to get around formal constraints, which is why grassroots and bottom-up approaches to fighting corruption tend to be more sustainable in the long run than isolated institutional and legal reform,” it says.

The organisation remarked that a few countries in the Asia Pacific region failed to protect their journalists, activists, opposition leaders and even law enforcement or watchdog agencies.

“Philippines, India and the Maldives are among the worst regional offenders in this respect. These countries score high for corruption and have fewer press freedoms and higher numbers of journalist deaths. In the last six years, 15 journalists working on corruption stories in these countries were murdered, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists,” the report says.

Last year, the murder of Bengaluru-based journalist Gauri Lankesh once again brought the issue of safety of journalists in India—or lack thereof—to the fore. While, the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists, placed India on the 136th position.

Transparency International also analysed the relationship between corruption levels, the protection of journalistic freedoms and engagement of civil society, and found that, “almost all journalists killed since 2012 were killed in corrupt countries.”

New Zealand topped the corruption perceptions index with a score of 89, while Denmark came a close second with 88 out of 100. Conflict-ridden countries fared worst, with Syria, South Sudan, and Somalia coming last.