Interpol to get anti-corruption lessons from India

India, recently ranked top in a bribery index, wants to share its vast experience in fighting corruption by providing training to Interpol, a news report said on Friday.

Central Bureau of Investigation Director Vijay Shankar, who was elected last week to the executive committee of Interpol, has offered India's help to train officers from around the world in cracking corruption cases.

"India got overwhelming support (at Interpol) and we have offered our expertise in anti-corruption tasks, if they would like us to organise training," Shankar told the Economic Times.

India's offer is to train officers to prevent, investigate and prosecute corruption cases in the new Interpol Anti-Corruption Academy that is being set up in Austria.

CBI has no dearth of corruption cases to investigate itself. It had registered 680 corruption cases in 2003, 794 in 2004 and 866 in 2005. While this year, between January and June, it has already registered 341 corruption cases, according to official data.

The offer comes at a time when non-profit or watchdog Transparency International has rated India as the leader in its Bribe Paying Index 2006. This index was compiled by asking 11,000 top-flight business executives in 125 countries to rank foreign companies in order of their propensity to bribe in the World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey.

The survey ranked Indian exporters as the most willing, when compared to counterparts from other countries, in giving bribes to secure contracts and deals.

-- DPA