America's top-paid CEO gets 10 times more than India's

The US has entered 17th straight month of recession, but the pay package of its highest-paid CEO exceeds $100 million (over Rs 500 crore) -- a figure more than 10 times that of his counterpart in the country of his birth, where economy is still growing at a decent rate.

America's top earning business head, mobile phone maker Motorola's co-CEO Sanjay Jha, who got a package of $104 million in 2008, happens to be an India-born person.

In comparison, India's top-paid business chief, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, got a total remuneration of Rs 44.02 crore in 2007-08, the last fiscal year for which the salary data is available.

Ambani's package is just about one-fifth of the same for even Vikram Pandit, also and India-born person and CEO of banking behemoth Citigroup, which had to seek the US government's support to keep running.

Pandit is fourth highest-paid CEO in the US with $38.2 million (about Rs 200 crore) pay packet, while another Indian-born CEO at a US company, PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, is at the 36th slot with a pay package of $13.98 million (about Rs 70 crore).

Pandit is also the highest paid CEO for bailed out banks in the US.

The US economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2008 by over six per cent maximum fall in 26 years and the economy is on a downward slope for 17 months now.