India is still perceived to be one of the most corrupt countries by Transparency International in its annual corruption perceptions. The country ranks 84th in the list of 'World's most corrupt nations' due to high public-sector corruption.

India's integrity score, a major component of the survey, stands at 3.4 out of the highest score of 10, which indicates that the country has a long way to go as far as eradicating corruption is concerned.

While releasing the names of the world's most corrupt countries, the international watchdog has for the first time recommended that tax havens like Switzerland and Liechtenstein should do away with the secrecy in banking laws.

"Corrupt money must not find safe haven. It is time to put an end to secrecy in banking laws," said the Berlin-based group's Head Huguette Labelle. The bottom five nations were Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq, while the cleanest countries with ranking close to perfect 10 were New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore.

Even China scored 3.6 on the scale, thereby indicating slightly better position than India in terms of perception of corrupt countries. In India's other neighbouring countries, Nepal was at 143rd position much below India, Pakistan scored 2.4 claiming 139th position along with Bangladesh while Sri Lanka scored 3.1 and stood at 97th position.

"Transparency international has found that strong correlation between corruption and poverty continued to exist, jeopardising the global fight against poverty and threatening to derail the United Nations Millennium Development Goals," Admiral (Retd.) R H Tahiliani, Chairman of Transparency International India said in a statement.

Source: Siliconindia