2009 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

Certain public sector anti-corruption safeguards in India perform very well while others do not. Good news can be found in robust public access to government information, high levels of public participation in elections, and a relatively strong anti-corruption legal framework. Furthermore, India's functional equivalent of an ombudsman mechanism — the Central Vigilance Commission — is quite effective. Despite strong performance in these areas, the country struggles with promoting transparency and accountability in the financing of political parties and candidates. For instance, there are currently no regulations that require parties or candidates to disclose the donations they receive (although there is an ongoing effort to pass a law that requires political parties to publish their financing). In addition, conflicts of interest laws governing the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are absent or are weakly enforced. Citizens face obstacles in accessing the anti-corruption agency for support; anonymous complaints are not allowed and there have been some cases of whistle-blowers being publicly identified.