Foreign aid worth $107.5 billion.

"US employers maintained a strong pace of hiring in March, pushing the unemployment rate back down to 3.5% and signaling labor market resilience that will keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates one more time next month." Reuters. "The Labor Department's closely watched employment report... showed that annual wage gains slowed but remained too high to be consistent with the US central bank's 2% inflation target." "Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the global economy is heading for the weakest period of growth since 1990." ET. "She said that the global growth would remain about 3 percent over the next five years - its lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990." Even so, "Central banks around the world should keep battling inflation by hiking interest rates despite ongoing concerns about financial stability, the head of the IMF told AFP." ET. The Reserve Bank of India has done just that. The RBI held its interest rate at 6.5% for "Financial stability concerns" even while noting that "Core inflation (is) still elevated across many goods and services." ET. In fact, "Rounded to one decimal place, core inflation has been above 6% for 21 consecutive months, which is the upper tolerance band for the RBI." HT. The RBI forecast a GDP growth rate of 6.5% and an inflation rate of 5.2% for 2023-24. However, 5.2% is much higher than the RBI's mandate of 4% (+/- 2%) set by the government to run till 2026. ET. The RBI seems to have changed its inflation target from 4% to 6%. But, as the US Federal Reserve's target for inflation is 2% and, as the inflation rate there falls closer to that figure, the buying power of the rupee should fall relative to the dollar. The rupee is supported by money sent by Indians living abroad. "India's gross remittances touched an all-time high of $107.5 billion during calendar year 2022, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced." ET. "Between 2016-17 and 2020-21, the share of remittances the US, the UK, and Singapore increased from 26 percent to over 36 percent, while the share of the five GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar) dropped from 54 percent to 28 percent, according to a RBI survey." This year's budget increased the tax rate on sending money abroad for investments, on paying for foreign trips and on living costs of Indian students studying abroad from 5% to 20%. ET. US banks face unrealized losses of $1.75 trillion due to a combination of $620 billion on long term securities and losses on their long term loans portfolio, wrote Prof Nouriel Roubini. "Judging by the quality of their capital, most US banks are technically insolvent and hundreds are fully insolvent." India will become a developed country in 25 years, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. DW. If we continue to get $107.5 billion of unconditional foreign aid every year. Let's hope the US stays strong.