Top job, big bucks

In July this year, India's software services giant Infosys announced that it was hiring former SAP chief technology officer Vishal Sikka as its new CEO at a compensation that could touch $5.08 million (Rs 30 crore or so) per annum including variable pay. Sikka would also be entitled to stock options to the tune of $2 million.

Sikka's remuneration made headlines because - though middling by global standards - it was the highest salary that had been offered to a non-promoter CEO in the country till date.

And it was vastly higher than the salary of the man who was doing the hiring. N.R. Narayana Murthy, who had given the final nod to Sikka's recruitment, was drawing a princely sum of Rs 1 per annum. Murthy had stipulated he would only accept a token salary when he agreed to come out of retirement in June 2013 and take charge as executive chairman once again.