India ranked lower than China in corruption for the first time in 18 years, according to the latest survey by Transparency International, a global agency that publishes such a list annually. The last time India was ranked above China was in 1996. In the latest rankings, India jumped 10 places to 85 out of 175 countries and China dropped 20 places to rank 100. Denmark was declared the least corrupt country, followed by New Zealand and Finland.

The Corruption Perceptions Index claims that not one single country gets a perfect score and more than two-thirds score below 50, on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 very clean. A country or territory's rank indicates its position relative to the other countries and territories on the index.