India occupied the 76th position in a list of 168 countries in global corruption watchdog Transparency International’s annual report on corruption perceptions, released on Wednesday.
The country scored a 38 out of 100, the maximum possible. As per the scoring system adopted, higher the score points on a scale of 0-100, lower is the corruption in that country.
Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide, using data from institutions including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and business school IMD. The index grades a country on a scale of zero to 100, the latter being the least corrupt.
This comes close to the heels of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying at a recently held event in Varanasi, that corruption had considerably come down ever since his government came to power in May 2014 as “nuts and bolts” had been tightened.
Meanwhile, Denmark remained at the top of the index for the second consecutive year with a score of 91 points, while the US came at the 16th spot with a score of 76, in a tie with Austria. The UK rose three spots to the 10th place, with a score of 81 that placed it in a tie with Germany and Luxembourg.
Brazil and Turkey were among nations that tumbled the most amid an ongoing scandal at state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s expanded bid to shore up power.
Transparency’s ranking, a composite index that draws from 12 surveys to rank nations around the globe, is used by analysts and investors to gauge the level of corruption at a worldwide scale.