Transparency International’s (TI) assessment methodology is flawed. This Geneva-based voluntary organisation which measures the degree of official corruption, i.e bribe taking, scamming, kickbacking etc by government officials in countries around the world, ranks India as the 72nd most corrupt country in the world in a list topped by Nigeria (pop. 141 million) and ahead (i.e less corrupt) of Chad (pop. 10.4 million), Bangladesh (153 million), Kenya (35 million), Paraguay (6 million) and Indonesia (226 million).

But if details of the assets/net worth declared by India’s politicians - which they are obliged to do prior to filing their nomination papers after general and state level elections have been notified (one of the most enlightened laws ever passed in this benighted republic) - are even half accurate, the gold medal for open, uninterrupted and continuous corruption cannot but be awarded to the sovereign, secular, socialist, etc Republic of India.

For instance former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy who declared family assets of Rs.3.76 crore when the assembly election of 2004 was notified, has now declared Rs.49.72 crore. Likewise the family assets of the former Bangalore development minister V. Somanna have ballooned to a Sensex besting Rs.21 crore. On April 22, Karnataka’s Lok Ayukta (ombudsman) Justice Santosh Hegde and his men conducted raids on the homes and offices of eight government bureaucrats and officials and confiscated documentary evidence which indicates that these officials have accumulated wealth aggregating Rs.32 crore. Among them, Mahesh Shankar Hanumashetty, a lowly Belgaum-based motor vehicles inspector who has an assets portfolio of Rs.22 crore. 

No doubt about it. Ranking India above 87 other countries in TI’s corruption index is a grave miscarriage of justice. The national interest demands that an appeal is filed in Geneva forthwith.