India, Feb. 24 -- India's modest rise in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released by Transparency International on February 10, offers cautious encouragement but also highlights deeper structural realities. India has moved up five places to rank 91st out of 182 countries, with its score improving marginally to 39 out of 100. Yet this remains below the global average of 42 and far from the standards of clean, transparent governance. The improvement is welcome, but a sub-40 score underscores a persistent truth: corruption in India is not merely episodic misconduct; it is embedded within institutional design, particularly in the architecture of over-regulation and compliance overload.

The CPI measures perceived corruption in th...