India ranks 81st in global corruption perception index; among worst offenders in Asia Pacific for graft, press freedom

Representational image. Reuters[/caption]The index uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.India's score in the latest ranking, however, remained unchanged at 40. In 2015, the score was 38.Transparency International further said, "in some countries across the region (Asia Pacific), journalists, activists, opposition leaders and even staff of law enforcement or watchdog agencies are threatened, and in the worst cases, even murdered"."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," it added.In the last six years, 15 journalists working on corruption stories in these countries were murdered, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).In the latest ranking New Zealand and Denmark were placed the highest, with scores of 89 and 88, respectively. On the other hand, Syria, South Sudan and Somalia were ranked lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9, respectively.Meanwhile, China with a score of 41 was ranked 77th on the list, while Brazil was placed at 96th with a score of 37 and Russia was at the 135th place with a score of 29.Further analysis of the results indicates that countries with the least protection for press and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also tend to have the worst rates of corruption.The analysis, which incorporates data from CPJ, showed that in the last six years, 9 out of 10 journalists were killed in countries that score 45 or less on the index.