I give below an on line article from the Hindu of 6th Dec. and my comments thereon.

TOPICS

crime, law and justice, corruption& bribery

India has been ranked 94th out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Last year, India was ranked 95 out of 183 countries that were studied.

In this year’s CPI, India earned a very low score of 36 on a scale from 0 (most corrupt) to 100 (least corrupt). Transparency International India attributed the low score to the recent scams and incidents of corruption in the public sector involving government officials, private officials and private companies.

Two-thirds of the 176 countries recorded a CPI score below 50. Denmark, Finland and Switzerland topped the index with a score of 90 followed by Sweden with a score of 88. Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia were perceived as the most corrupt countries scoring just 8 out of 100.

India has been ranked below neighbours Sri Lanka and China, while it fared better than Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Transparency International said data from 10 independent sources specialising in governance and business climate analysis including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum were used to arrive at India’s CPI score.

Updated methodology

From this year, the CPI methodology has been updated allowing for year-over-year comparisons from 2012 onwards. India was ranked 72 among 180 countries in 2007 and since then the country’s ranking fell to 87 in 2010 and 95 in 2011.

“Corruption is a hydra-headed monster and governments have to make efforts to tackle it from all sides. This can only happen if all stakeholders work together,” said P. S. Bawa, chair of Transparency International India.

Keywords:corrupt countries, Transparency International, corruption issue

MY COMMENTS

The Corruption Perception Index and the methodology adopted to rank India as 94^thamong 176 countries perhaps does not factor in the perceived improvement in fighting corruption based on actions taken by the country as a whole. The results of these efforts may take time to get reflected in the Corruption Perception Index but there must be a way of comparing countries in putting in such efforts that may perhaps improve the positive impact of the listings and findings of Transparency International.

Never before in Independent India have such huge masses come to the streets to fight corruption as they did in August 2011 under the historic leadership of Shri Anna Hazare who took up a fast unto death, one of the froms of protests successfully adopted by Mahathma Gandhi to overthrow British imperialism and colonialism in India. Anna Hazare's health detriorated rapidly in twelve days and the Lok Sabha, India's lower House of Parliament, in August 2011 passed a positive resolution conveying the sense of the house on passing an overarching antigraft Bill called the Lok Pal Bill. This Bill may have its defects, it may take more time to get legislated than we desire but it can not be postponed or twisted out of shape to renege on the promise of Parliament to the people in the form of the sense of the House resolution. This would have impacted the Corruption Perception Index had the methodology of Transparency international been fine tuned to take into account such anti-corruption efforts on an institutional and on a mass scale basis across countries.

Never before in Independent India have so many leaders spoken against the evil of corruption both inside and outside the Parliament. From the undisputed leader of the Congress party, arguably weilding power disproportionate to accountability, to the leaders of all parties in Parliament, every politically powerful person has publicly condemned corruption and exhorted their cadres to avoid corruption. The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, a southern State of India, recently called all the metropolitan corporators and rebukde them publicly for graft and warned them of dire consequences if they persisted in fleecing contractors for public works. She is known to send to political oblivion even her most trusted lieutenents if they don't fall in line with her goals and expectations. The Chief Ministers of Kerala, Bihar, Orissa, Gujarat and West Bengal have similar strong antigraft goal orientation. Many other Chief ministers of States in India are slowly veering round to such a goal oreintation. It is reasonable to assume that it is just a matter of time for such a top-of-the-pyramid seachange in corruption busting to spread lower down.

The youth of India who constitute the majority of the population may not shrug and bribe their way any more. They may not be able to make much of an impact right now in a measurable way. But they are watching and they are angry and fed up with the venality of their netas. And they are networked through social networking sites and the cell phones of varying potential for effective communication. The situation is highly volatile and leaders are aware of this. India has to clean up and clean up fast or else there is no telling when massive upheavals will take place to challenge all institutions of its democracy. The only saving grace is that Mahatma Gandhi is even today a living icon of nonviolence in the Indian psyche and it would take a lot of rot for violence to erupt uncontrollably. If leaders do not lead in corruption busting they themselves will go bust by the sheer momentum of people's anger and uprising. It is because leaders are sensitive to this ground reality that Transparency International had better provide for imminent changes in perceptions of fighting corruption in their matrix of reckoning perceived corruption levels in such a way that countries actively rising against corruption are rated better than those where it is business as usual.

After 9/11 the US woke up to the fact that money laundering finances terrorism. Corruption feeds money laundering, among other nefarious activities. All world leaders woke up to the fact that money laundering, whether for terrorism or for illegal drugs, arms or crimes of all hues has to be tackled on a war footing. Thus was born the United Nations Convention Against corruption and the International Anti-corruption Academy and the International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation. Pl. see these links :(copy and paste in a new browser window)

http://www.iaca.int/IACAcontent/IACAdocuments/Treaty/IACA_AGREEMENT_E.pdf

http://www.imolin.org/http://www.imolin.org/

http://www.imolin.org/pdf/imolin/FATF_New_Standards.pdf

http://www.fatf-gafi.org/topics/fatfrecommendations/documents/internationalstandardsoncombatingmoneylaunderingandthefinancingofterrorismproliferation-thefatfrecommendations.html

After the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008, developed countries woke up to the fact that banking and financial institutions and large corporates were so deeply corrupt that they operated in a paradigm of“anything-goes-and-what-is-not-prohibited-is-permitted”. Tighter oversight and control of the financial universe across the developed countries has emerged as the prerequisite for long term economic health of the global economy as a whole. Even Chinese leaders have publicly reprimanded and punished their leaders for corruption, sleaze and misuse of party position.

The point is, countries differ in how seriously they take corruption busting. They differ in how seriously they take international cooperation and compliance with international conventions, treaties and agreements on corruption busting. They differ how they fight corruption through their own institutions of governance, political institutions and citizen's movements and pressure groups. Therefore countries should be graded according to their overall efforts and intent and not merely according to present perceptions of corruption by the Transparency International.

It is a fair guess that if this approach is adopted India would have less hand-wringing and more hope and motivation for corruption busting than is the case when we just look at the ranking according to the Corruption Perception Index. It is also a fair guess that India would emerge as far less corrupt in, say, a decade from now, than many other countries in a comparable position now. This is because of the generally robust ambiance in which the media operate in India; the slow but sure justice delivery systems; and the institutions of democracy becoming willy-nilly more and more responsive to the 'broadbanded', 'net-worked', mobile-phone-enabled citizens of India. Mobile phone penetration across the world is over six billion (three quarters of the world population) as of July 2012, and increasing by the day. Of this, five billion is in developing countries. Please copy and paste this link in a new browser window that takes you to a World Bank press Release of July 17 2012 :
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/07/17/mobile-phone-access-reaches-three-quarters-planets-population
Mobile phone enabled citizen-government interface and connectivity and welfare/service delivery has taken off and this will be a key factor in equitable economic development underpinned by transparency and absence of corruption. Transparency Internatinal may perhaps further update and innovate its methodology to track emerging positives in the fight against corruption to reflect more comprehensively the ground realities in the Corruption Perception Index that may spur laggard countries to do better in this vital area of building a better and more equitable world order.