Sundar Pichai's huge salary, Pernod Ricard's licence woes, and more

The Federal brings you the latest news in the business world, both local and international, on Saturday (April 22).

Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai received total compensation of $226 million in 2022

The filing on Friday revealed that Pichai’s compensation included approximately $218 million in stock awards.

What it implies: While the compensation seems huge, it includes a once-in-three-year stock grant of $218 million. Pichai’s salary without the stock grant last year was $6.3 million.

In addition, as part of his compensation package, Alphabet spent $5.94 million on personal security for Pichai.

Also read: Google CEO Sunar Pichai to take pay cut after firing 12,000 employees

Pichai’s compensation may trigger another round of employee protests, as it happened in its London office recently when hundreds staged a walkout following layoffs.

In January, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced that it planned to eliminate 12,000 jobs or 6 per cent of its global workforce.

Pernod Ricard to challenge Delhi govt order on non-renewal of licence

Due to ongoing investigations into the group and allegations that the company’s Indian subsidiary was involved in a “criminal conspiracy”, the French beverage multinational has not been permitted to sell within New Delhi’s municipal limits.

What it implies: Radico Khaitan and United Spirits are expected to benefit from the ban, splitting the 33 per cent market share Pernod Ricard has in the prestige class and the nearly 18 per cent in overall whisky volume cases in Delhi.

However, the Delhi market represents about 5 per cent of its overall sales nationwide.

Also read: Delhi excise policy leaked to liquor cos; Sisodia, others changed 140 phones to destroy evidence: ED

In recent years, the group’s businesses in India have run into several legal and regulatory problems. For example, the Indian government fined the group $244 million for allegedly undervaluing concentrate imports for over a decade to avoid paying full taxes.

A former company employee was also arrested on corruption-related charges linked to the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021.

Impact of India’s frequent heat waves: Cambridge University study

A Cambridge University study has said India’s heat waves are making almost all its people more vulnerable to illness and hunger, holding back the development of Asia’s third-largest economy.

The impact of heat stress from repeated high temperatures is currently not being measured by the Indian government. India uses a national Climate Vulnerability Indicator (CVI) to measure climate vulnerability and make adaptation plans.

Also read: Andhra: MeT issues heat wave alert for three days

The CVI includes many socioeconomic, biophysical, institutional, and infrastructural factors. But it doesn’t have a physical risk indicator for heatwaves, which is a critical missing factor that would help policymakers consider how extreme heat impacts the Indian population.

New study includes ‘heat index’ for first time

The new study is the first one to include a “heat index” to measure the recurring impacts of Indian heatwaves on the country’s population. The index measures how hot the human body feels relative to the surrounding conditions when humidity and air temperature are added together.

The study suggests that the CVI underestimates the principal risks and threats of heatwaves to the Indian population because it does not include any heat stress measure. This missing element also makes it harder to identify areas of the country, like Delhi and other large urban areas, that are most vulnerable.

Also read: How Alipore zoo is protecting animals from heat wave | Kolkata

“So, we could figure out how extreme heat affects people and in which parts of the country,” said first author Dr Ramit Debnath, Cambridge Zero Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

“A heat stress measure which identifies the impact and the parts of India where the population is most vulnerable to recurring heatwaves would help to make state Heat Action Plans being created across India more effective,” he said.

Researchers used publicly available state-level climate vulnerability indicators’ data from the Indian Government’s National Data and Analytics Platform to classify severity categories.

Burden on economy, public health resources

Previous studies have shown that India’s frequent heat waves significantly burden its economy and public health resources. Long-term predictions show that the heat waves will affect more than 300 million people by 2050 and lower the quality of life for almost 600 million Indians by 2100.

But there needs to be more focus on their short-term effects and the plans for dealing with heat waves.