India improves ranking at 76 in global corruption index

But corruption perception score remains the same as last year at 38/100, which is seen as insufficient improvement

India has been ranked at 76th position in public sector corruption out of 168 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, improving its slot from 85 in 2014 and 94 in 2013.

Although corruption is still rife globally, many countries improved their scores in the 2015 edition of the corruption index, a Trasparency International statement said on Wednesday.

Overall, two-thirds of the 168 countries on the 2015 index scored below 50 points on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).

Despite an improvement in the overall ranking, India's corruption perception score remains the same as last year at 38/100, which is seen as insufficient improvement. Brazil, Burkina Faso, Thailand, Tunisia and Zambia are the other countries that shares the same ranking as India. China fared worse than India and Brazil at rank 83 with a score of 37. 

On the other hand, Pakistan is the only country among the SAARC countries, to have improved its score this year, though its rank remains poor at 117

"The 2015 corruption perceptions index clearly shows that corruption remains a blight around the world. But 2015 was also a year when people again took to the streets to protest corruption," Jose Ugaz, chair of Transparency International, was quoted as saying.

"People across the globe sent a strong signal to those in power: it is time to tackle grand corruption," Ugaz said.

Denmark took the top spot scoring 91 points, while North Korea and Somalia were the worst performers, scoring just eight points each.

Top performers share key characteristics including high levels of press freedom, access to budget information, high levels of integrity among people in power, and judiciaries that don't differentiate between rich and poor.

Brazil was the biggest decliner in the index, falling five points and dropping seven positions to a rank of 76.

The big decliners in the past four years include Libya, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Turkey. The big improvers include Greece, Senegal and Britain.

The corruption perceptions index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption.