India less corrupt than China and Russia, Denmark cleanest: Study

Not one single country, anywhere in the world, is corruption-free. However, in 2015, people worked together and showed that they can succeed in fighting corruption. While corruption is still rife globally, more countries have improved their scores in 2015 than declined, as per a report of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

India continued to be at the 76th spot, the same as 2014, with 38 points. Though Brazil was the biggest decliner in the index, falling 5 points and dropping 7 positions to a rank of 76.

China is at the 83rd spot with 37 points while Russia is at 119th spot with 29 points. The index covers perceptions of public sector corruption in 168 countries.

Denmark took the top spot for the second year in the running, with North Korea and Somalia the worst performers, scoring just 8 points each. The big decliners in the past 4 years include Libya, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Turkey. The big improvers include Greece, Senegal and UK.

Top performers share key characteristics: high levels of press freedom; access to budget information so the public knows where money comes from and how it is spent; high levels of integrity among people in power; and judiciaries that don’t differentiate between rich and poor, and that are truly independent from other parts of government.

In addition to conflict and war, poor governance, weak public institutions like police and the judiciary, and a lack of independence in the media characterise the lowest ranked countries.

The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption. A poor score, as per the report, is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs.

Table of results: Corruption Perceptions Index 2015

A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). A country's rank indicates its position relative to the other countries in the index. This year's index includes 168 countries and territories. Click on the column headings to sort the results, or use the search to view the results for one country. Note that N/A means a country was not included in the index during a particular year.

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