Dear Santosh,
You seem to have not read my previous post properly or completely. Please read
it again. May be I was not adequately clear. For your ease, I am reframing
the part for more clarity: Transparency International (TI) in the same CPI
report says: "Given its methodology, CPI is not a tool that is useful for
trend analysis or for monitoring the changes in the perceived levels of
corruption over time for all countries." This means TI itself says that
you cannot interpret that 3.3 of today as improvement over 2.8 of 2000.
Further, you are right that Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions
Index has got to be at least as good as the collective opinions of a few
hundred readers posted on a Times of India website. I would say much better
because the opinion makers (13 sources from 10 institutions) that TI used have
high opinion weights. Globally, CPI was derived from 13 scientific surveys
(1070 country-survey combinations) with an average of around 80 experts and
businessmen voted per survey. India CPI was derived from 10 scientific surveys
of around 800 experts and businessmen.
TI has merely said that India CPI for 2010 is 3.3 and for 2000 is 2.8. It is an
index to be read in absolute terms. It can also be read in relative terms to
compare two countries in the same year. But it cannot be used to compare a
country over a period of time unless there is a change of atleast 0.3 points
year-on-year.
TI in the report only qualified the countries with 0.3 point rise in a year as
improvement (decrease in corruption). It also elaborately says why a lesser
rise cannot be called improvement. And therefore, India's 0.5 point change over
10 years does not allow us to conclude what you posted originally: "The good
news is that corruption in India is on the decline over the last 10 years".
Rajendra
In response to Santosh querry: Are you suggesting that your own perception and
that of six of your friends captures the corruption trend better than an index
derived from 14 scientific surveys of thousands of people in India? Let me put
it this way. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index has got
to be at least as good as the collective opinions of a few hundred readers
posted on a Times of India website.
Rajendra Previous post: My perception was that the corruption has increased.
When
I read your post I was stunned. I therefore did a quick opinion check by
phoning 6 friends. All concurred with my perception. Then I checked the site
of Transparency International. Here I found that we cannot interpret that 3.3
of today is better than 2.8 of
2000. The Transparency International has qualified the report, the relevent
clause is reproduced: "Given its methodology, CPI is not a tool that is useful
for trend analysis or for monitoring the changes in the perceived levels of
corruption over time for all countries."
Santosh Helekar's original post: The good news is that corruption in
India is on the decline over the last 10 years. In the year 2000 Transparency
International's Corruption Perceptions Index for India was worse than it is
today (2.8 compared to 3.3 today; higher the index the better it is).
