Roughly during the period when allegations of corruption flew thick and fast in India, the country saw less crony capitalism, showed an index formed by magazine, The Economist. This apparently happened as India took measures to nab those found guilty of corruption. India’s position in the crony-capitalism index went down to ninth in a list of 23 countries in 2014 from sixth in 2007. The lower the index, the more crony capitalism a country has. One might wonder as to how India saw less impact of crony capitalism when charges of corruption were leveled against some Central, state ministers as well as businessmen one after another and a whole movement against graft occupied the public mind. One might wonder as to how India saw less impact of crony capitalism when charges of corruption were leveled against some Central, state ministers as well as businessmen one after another and a whole movement against graft occupied the public mind. The magazine says — India’s legal system is trying to jail a minister accused of handing telecoms licences to his chums. Then telecom minister A Raja was arrested on February two, 2011 and was placed for a period of 15 months in a judicial custody at Tihar jail. On May 15, 2012, he was granted bail by the Supreme court. Raja is seeking re-election from Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency on the DMK ticket. The article says recent graft scandals and a slowing economy have hurt many of its (India’s) financially leveraged and politically connected businessmen, while those active in technology, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods have prospered. The index used data from Forbes to calculate the total wealth of those of the world’s billionaires who are active mainly in rent-heavy industries, and compare that total to world GDP to get a sense of its scale. The index shows results for 23 countries-the five largest developed ones, the ten largest developing ones for which reliable data are available, and a selection of eight smaller ones where cronyism is thought to be a big problem.

(Business Standard)