India's highest-paid CEO leads IT behemoth cognizant, which is now under fire for posting a job advertising paying ₹2.52 lakh annually to young graduates. According to a Mint article, cognizant CEO ravi Kumar Singisetti was compensated $22.56 million (about ₹186 crore) last year. The 52-year-old ravi Kumar Singisetti became Cognizant's CEO in january 2023. With a one-time stock incentive of around ₹169.1 crore ($20.25 million) last year, he became the highest-paid CEO in India's IT industry in 2023.

According to a Mint story from april of this year, Singisetti's income is 556 times higher than the median wage of cognizant workers. This astounding amount has drawn criticism, though, when a recent cognizant job posting promised prospective employees a "unlivable" salary of ₹2.52 lakh.

“Cognizant offering 2.25 lpa to recent graduates while the ceo’s salary is 186 crores, making him the highest salaried ceo in India,” X user Swastika Yadav posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “They were offering the same ‘exciting’ 2.25 lakhs two decades back as well. Why can’t we have minimum wage criteria in all the sectors?” Yadav questioned.

Hundreds of others slammed Cognizant’s starting salary after the job listing went viral yesterday. “Cognizant has announced an exciting off-campus mass hiring drive, welcoming applications from candidates belonging to the 2024 batch. application deadline - august 14. Package - INR 2.52 LPA,” popular X account indian Tech & Infra posted, sparking outrage.
 

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