Current affairs

1) Freshly-appointed Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who will take charge on 1 August 2014, will get an annual salary of $5.08 million (over Rs. 30 crore) to become the highest-paid CEO in Indian software industry. His total salary (including stock options) stands at $7.08 million, which is roughly comparable to the 4.23 million euroes (Rs. 34 crore) he was making at his previous job as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at German software major SAP. Who was till now the highest paid CEO in the Indian software industry? – N. Chandrasekaran (N. Chandrasekaran, the chief executive officer (CEO) of India’s largest software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), received a nearly 60% hike in annual salary in 2013-14 and his annual compensation stood at 18.68 crore ($3.15 million) in the year ended March 2014. Now Vishal Sikka becomes the highest paid CEO in the Indian software industry)

2) The minimum export price (MEP) on onion was raised to $500 per tonne on 2 July 2014 as the price of onion in the domestic market continues to rise. What was the present MEP on onion which was announced by the Union Govt. on 17 June 2014? – $300 per tonne(On June 17, an MEP of $300 per tonne was imposed on onion, but it had not helped to arrest the prices. Now raising the MEP to $500 per tonne means that onions, which are priced below Rs. 30 per kg, will not be allowed to be exported from the country)

3) Which state declared camel as the State animal on 30 June 2014? – Rajasthan (Rajasthan Govt. declared camel as the State animal mainly to check the dwindling number of camels. Camel, which is also known as the  ‘ship of the desert’, is slaughtered for its meat, killed as part of sacrifice in several districts of Rajasthan and illegally transported to the neighbouring states for slaughter which had resulted in its numbers falling sharply. Fast disappearing grazing areas has also added to a severe food crisis for camels. According to the Livestock Census data, there were 668,000 camels in Rajasthan in 1997 which were reduced to 498,000 camels in 2003, amounting to a 25% decrease in five years. By 2008, the number had decreased further by 13.5% to 430426. Camels provide livelihood to a large number of people in rural Rajasthan)

4) Defending champion Andy Murray (Britain) was ousted from Wimbledon 2014 men’s singles championship after being defeated in the quarterfinals on 2 July 2014. Which Bulgarian player defeated him to become the first Bulgarian man to reach the semi-finals of a grand slam tournament? – Grigor Dimitrov (11th seeded Grigor Dimitrov defeated Murray by 6-1, 7-6, 6-2 to reach semi-finals. Andy Murray had won the Wimbledon men’s singles title last year to become the first British player in 77 years to win the coveted title)

5) Who on 1 July 2014 became the first female four-star Admiral in the history of U.S. Navy? – Michelle Janine Howard (Howard was promoted as U.S. Navy’s first female four-star admiral in a ceremony presided by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. She is now serving as the 38th Vice Chief of Naval Operations)