A business survey of the 12 major economies in Asia has found what the ordinary citizens of India have known all along. That India’s ‘suffocating bureaucracy’ is the least efficient of all of them. In a poll of 1274 expatriates working in the north and south Asian nations, Hong Kong based ‘Political and Economic Risk Consultancy’ concluded that the Indian civil servants are ‘a power centre in their own right at both national and state levels, and extremely resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties’. Singapore was ranked first for the third year running, Hong Kong was second and Thailand despite four years of civil unrest and one year of unstable government came third. The 12 economies in order of ranking were: Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, S Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Phillipines, Indonesia and India.