Surely Not Hindustan :snooty:
India has once again emerged with the dubious distinction of being among the top corrupt nations in Asia, a survey has found.
India was dubbed the second most corrupt nation in Asia after Indonesia, according to the annual survey conducted by Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd(PERC) among 1,072 foreign company executives executives working in Asia.
Corruption in India “affects people’s daily lives in such basic ways”, including paying fees for admission to better schools and to get electricity installed, the survey noted.
Indonesia emerged as the most corrupt country, with a score of 9.33 out of a possible 10, while India with 8.25 was second.
Singapore maintained its billing as the least corrupt, with its best ever score of 0.38 in the PERC survey, which was first issued in 1997. The second-least corrupt country after Singapore was Hong Kong, at 3.61, followed by Japan at 4.5.
The survey found that most executives believed corruption was worse this year than last year. “Corruption is perceived to have worsened as a problem in the past year in seven of the 12 Asian countries covered”, the group said.
However, PERC said corruption in Asia should be seen against the financial scandals that rocked some Western countries recently including the Enron accounting scandal. Compared with such cases, “much of the corruption in Asia is penny ante stuff”, it said.
The PERC said the survey only measured perceptions among business people, and was not necessarily a reflection of reality.
Indonesia might not be Asia’s most corrupt nation but “the perception of this problem is the worst, and this poses a major problem for a government that is heavily dependent on foreign aid”, the group said.
Further, there appeared to be a link between income levels and corruption, PERC said. Developed countries such as Singapore tended to fare the best, while those perceived to be most corrupt had the least developed economies.
The countries in the study were India, Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea and Thailand.