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India has marginally improved its ranking in the graft watchdog Transparency International's corruption perception index for 2016, a list topped by New Zealand and Denmark which are jointly ranked as the world's least corrupt nations.
The Berlin-based anti-graft organisation has used data from the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and other institutions to rank 176 countries by perceived levels of corruption in public sector.
The score runs from zero, which is highly corrupt, to 100, which is very clean. India, China and Brazil with a score of 40 each figured in the 10 key economies in the mid-range.
India's score has improved by two points from 2015, when it scored 38.
The latest rankings put New Zealand and Denmark in joint first place with a score of 90, followed by Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Netherlands and Canada.
At the bottom of the index is Somalia, ranked as the most corrupt country. Other countries with lower rankings – which typically point to badly performing public institutions, bribery or corruption – were Syria, South Sudan, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
No country got close to a perfect score in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories in this year's index fall below the midpoint of the scale.
The global average score is a paltry 43, indicating endemic corruption in a country's public sector.
The majority of Asia Pacific countries sit in the bottom half of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. 19 out of 30 countries in the region scored 40 or less out of 100, the watchdog said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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