3 JULY 2014: Vishal Sikka (CEO Infosys) becomes highest paid CEO of India

Ø  India has become the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled. The Treaty was adopted by 79 member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on June 27, 2013, and India ratified it on June 24 this year. India handed over the Instrument of Ratification to WIPO at the 28th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva.

Ø  Indian construction workers trapped in Mosul (Iraq) have been press-ganged to build earthworks and defensive fortifications by Islamist insurgents holding the city.

Ø  As the security situation in Iraq deteriorates, the government has prepared a two-phased plan to evacuate Indians, designating Najaf, Basra and Baghdad as the nodal points of exit, if such a contingency arises.

Ø  Karnataka appeared to be the site of hectic activity for India’s covert uranium enrichment programme as well as a secret testing ground for armed drones, according to satellite photographs and other evidence compiled by a U.S. think tank. The discovery that India’s nuclear establishment has pressed forward into the early development stages of a Special Material Enrichment Facility (SMEF) came as the second instance of the veil of secrecy surrounding a nuclear facility being pierced in less than two weeks, in the same Indian State.

Vishal Sikka

Ø  Newly-appointed Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka will draw an annual salary of $5.08 million (over Rs. 30 crore). In addition, he will also receive $2 million in stock options, placing him atop the list of well-paid Indian CEOs. He takes home at least 60 per cent more than the highest paid CEO in the Indian software industry, TCS CEO N. Chandrasekaran. Wipro CEO T.K. Kurien made Rs. 6.55 crore in 2013-14, while iGate's Ashok Vemuri made Rs. 16.2 crore in the last fiscal. Up until now, executive salaries at Infosys have not been a subject of speculation, given that founder CEOs took home much more in terms of dividend earnings.