International Monetary Fund

Despite stepped-up global efforts, more than a year into the global crisis, "new cases worldwide are higher than ever", IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, chief economist Gita Gopinath and economist Ruchir Agarwal, wrote in a joint blog published on Friday. "Urgent action is needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain," they said.

According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) weekly statistical supplement, the reserves increased to $590.028 billion from $589.465 billion reported for the week ended May 7. India's forex reserves comprise foreign currency assets (FCAs), gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs), and the country's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) weekly statistical supplement, the reserves increased to $581.213 billion from $576.869 billion reported for the week ended April 2. India's forex reserves comprise foreign currency assets (FCAs), gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs), and the country's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"It is a remarkable demonstration of multilateralism" that the IMF membership has agreed to support a new SDR allocation of $650 billion, the largest in the history of the IMF, Georgieva said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua news agency. "In comparison, in the midst of the global financial crisis, the membership allocated 250 billion dollars to help countries deal with the consequences of this crisis," she said.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the secretary-general has called for liquidity, the statement continued, through a large issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) - an instrument created by the International Monetary Fund to help supplement cash reserves - for those most in need, and a reallocation of unused SDRs.