India's bribery rate is 69%, highest in Asia Pacific; Pakistan's 40%, China's 26%, Sri Lanka's 23%, Japan's 0.2%: Report

By Our Representative
A recent report by a Berlin-based non-profit, Transparency International, has qualified India as the most corrupt country in the Asia-Pacific region. Based on interviews with 21,861 people in 16 countries of the region, the report says that while the “bribery rate” in India was highest at 69%, it was the lowest in Japan, 0.2%.
Conducted in India by Cvoter International for Transparency International through mainly face-to-face interviews with 2,802 people, the survey finds 73% of the poorest people paid bribe, as against the regional average of just 38%. Interestingly, 55% of the richest people in India also said they paid bribe.
The report carries the photograph of activists of NGO Prayas rescuing a trafficked child in a train reaching Mumbai from the India-Nepal border town of Raxaul, insisting, “Corruption is increasingly cited as a key cause and traffickers rarely face justice.
It adds, “Corruption both facilitates trafficking and feeds the flow of people by destabilizing democracies, weakening a country’s rule of law and stalling development.”
Across all the countries, people were asked about corruption in six key public services during the previous 12 months – public schools, public clinics or hospitals, official documents, utility services, the police and the courts.
The report says, as compared to India, the bribery rate was Vietnam is 65%, followed by Thailand 41%, Pakistan, Myanmar and Cambodia (40% each), Indonesia 32%, China 26%, Malaysia 23%, Mongolia 20%, Sri Lanka 15%, Taiwan 6%, Australia 4%, South Korea 3%, and Japan 0.2%.

Activists in Mumbai identify child victim of trafficking,
"rampant" due to corruption

Ironically, despite such high bribery rate, the survey results show that 53% of those interviewed found that the government in India was “doing well” in fighting corruption, while 35% said, it was doing badly. At the same time, 41% of those interviewed said that the level of corruption has “increased” in India.
The survey further found that 63% agreed when asked, “Can ordinary people make a difference in the fight against corruption?” This is against 53% in Pakistan, 49% in Japan, 53% in Vietnam, 66% in South Korea, 72% in Thailand, 73% in Sri Lanka, 78% in Indonesia and 80% in Australia.
Conducted between July 2015 and January 2017, the survey is based on what the report says, “the Global Corruption Barometer 2017”, with questions asked “via face to face or telephone survey in the Asia Pacific region, with a random selection of adults in all 16 surveyed countries, territories and regions.”
“Face to face household interviews were conducted either with Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) or Paper-and-Pencil Interviewing (PAPI)”, the report adds.
“To calculate the total number of bribe payers in the Asia Pacific region, we used the national bribery rates (the percentage of all adults who had paid a bribe) to calculate the number of bribe payers in each country/territory/ region”, says the report, adding, “We then added the projected number of bribe payers across all 16 countries/territories.”
It further says, “The scores are based on the percentage of respondents in each country/ territory who say that corruption has either increased a little or increased a lot over the 12 months prior to when the survey was conducted.”

Comments

Missed call drive for VVPAT verification follows online plea to "pressure" poll panel

By Our Representative
Several political activists have begun a new campaign, asking concerned citizens to give a missed call on 9667655855 to “support the demand that 2019 Loksabha elections must be declared only after verification of 50% electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) receipts.” The effort, supported by civil society networks across India, is meant to "further pressure" India's election machinery to ensure that the poll outcome becomes more transparent.

Did Modi own, buy digital camera costing Rs 7 lakh in 1987-88, also used email?

Counterview Desk
In an interview to the news channel News Nation, aired on Saturday last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declaring that he had approved the air strike despite bad weather because he felt the clouds would hide Indian planes from Pakistani radar is known to have become a laughing stock across India.

When a neo-nationalist "invaded" hijab clad ladies, Bengali looking scholar in Delhi metro

By Aditi Kundu*
Travelling in Delhi metro on a daily basis to commute from Mayur Vihar to Dwarka, I see diverse people everyday. One can hear them talk about different aspects of life, from kitchen pilitics to national politics. On the morning of May 13, I witnessed a strange incident; disturbing and amusing at the same time.

Terror attacks: Difference in public reactions in India, those in Colombo, Christchurch

By Battini Rao*
Recently, on April 20 during Easter Sunday, more than 250 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in churches and hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Local Islamic organisations Thawheed Jamath (NJT) and Jamathei Milathu Ibrahim (JMI) are held responsible for the attack. Islamic State has also claimed responsibility.

Women lost 88 lakh jobs in 2018: Why Modi "failed" to address their disempowerment?

Counterview Desk
Five human rights leaders Anjali Bhardwaj, Shabnam Hashmi, Purnima Gupta, Dipta Bhog, and Amrita Johri of the Women March for Change have posed 56 questions (alluding to Modi’s claim of 56 inches chest) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP against the backdrop of his interview with a Bollywood star, which was allegedly masqueraded as a “non-political” conversation.

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

Disproportionately high death sentences against Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims: UN told

Counterview Desk
In their joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee to meet for the listing of adoption of list of issues at its 126th session, July 1-26, 2019, top Dalit rights organizations have taken strong exception to, among other things, "disproportional application of death sentencing by the judiciary of minorities, such as Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis".

Ex-IAS, IPS, IFS officers tell Modi: Pragya Thakur doesn't represent India's rich heritage

Counterview Desk
In an open statement, a group of former civil servants have said that normally they would have dismissed the candidature of Pragya Thakur, who is BJP’s choice for the Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, as an act of political expediency. However, they were forced to react to her candidature after none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed has as a “symbol of our civilisational heritage.”

India's 80% construction sites "unsafe", deaths 20 times higher than those in Britain

By Rajiv Shah
The Government of India may be seeking to project India’s construction sector as the country’s second-largest employer of the country after agriculture, providing jobs to more than 44 million people, and contributing nearly 9% to the national GDP, yet, ironically, its workforce is more unprotected than any other industrial sector of the country. Data suggest that the possibility of a fatality is five times more likely in the construction industry than in a manufacturing industry, and the risk of a major injury is 2.5 times higher.

India sans Modi preferable, Congress worthier recipient of Indians’ votes: The Economist

By Our Representative
In a strongly-worded and crucial commentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the electoral political battle is on, influential British weekly “The Economist”, has declared that “Indians, who are in the midst of voting in a fresh election, would be better off with a different leader”, even as pointing out that that under Modi, “India’s ruling party poses a threat to democracy.”

Counterview

Search This Blog