International Anti-Corruption Day: India scores highest marks

By resolution 58/4 of 31 October 2003, the UN General Assembly designated 9 December as International Anti-Corruption Day. This decision was taken in order to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of the United Nations Convention against Corruption in combating and preventing it. The Assembly urged all States and competent regional economic integration organizations to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption as soon as possible in order to ensure its rapid entry into force.

Are we racing towards a Failed State?
India 87th on corruption list – Will we ever improve? by Viral Dholakia
Have you noticed how a bunch of ants surround a cube of sugar? Similarly, where there is big money involved – the corruption will most likely find its roots dug deep into the system. It is literally under every stone you turn. And, by now, most of us in India have learned to live with corruption as a part and parcel of our life.

In India, the tentacles of corruption are spread far and wide in all horizons of life and not just limited to government organizations. Recent instances of IPL scam and the Commonwealth Games fiasco underscores as to how a big moolah can attract corruption even in a Gentleman’s game. (The 2G Spectrum Scam has drained the national wealth- increasing the nation's poverty Index/ levels and making the poor poorer)

Moreover, corruption is not just limited to India. It is a massive phenomena and a real cancer destroying the benefits of globalization in many poor countries.

The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that three quarters of the 178 countries in the index have fared miserably in terms of corruption problem.

Specifically, India has slipped three places in global rankings of most corrupt countries, from 84 in 2009 to 87 this year.

On the ranking based on the scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (low level of corruption), India scored 3.3 to grab 87th position in sharing with Jamaica and Liberia. It is understood that the CWG has to take blame for India’s poor show – on account of large-scale corruption in preparation to hosting the grand event.

On a positive note, only 5 countries – Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland and Sweden – managed to score higher than 9 points which indicates the list of least corrupted nations. The countries that ranked as most corrupt nations were Somalia, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report released by Transparency International, which is based on input from 13 different experts and business surveys, further indicates that the global financial crisis took a toll on people’s views of corruption in government.

Notable among decliners over the past one year are some of the countries most affected by the financial crisis precipitated by transparency and integrity deficits. The survey highlighted the fact that few of the improvers were from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
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