With higher interest rates in the US, the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are expected to be led away from the emerging markets such as India.

The US Fed dropped an assurance to be "patient" in raising interest rates and signalled the hike could come by mid to late this year.

"Just because we removed the word patient from our statement doesn't mean we will be impatient," Janet Yellen, US Federal Reserve Board chairman said at a press conference after a globally-awaited meeting of the policy committee on March 18.

For the previous week ended March 20, the Indian reserves had increased by $4.26 billion to $339.99 billion. However, for the week ended March 13, the reserves had fallen by $2.06 billion to $335.72 billion due to a rally in the US dollar and that major non-dollar currencies were trading at their weekly lows.

The Indian reserves hold nearly 20-25 percent of the non-dollar currencies.

According to the RBI's weekly statistical supplement, foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves grew by $1.35 billion at $316.23 billion in the week under review.

The foreign currency assets had grown by $4.53 billion at $314.88 billion in the week ended March 20. The assets had, however declined by $1.97 billion at $310.34 billion in the week ended March 13.

The RBI said the foreign currency assets, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies such as the pound sterling, euro and yen held in reserve.

India's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the week ended March 27 increased by $8.5 million and stood at $1.29 billion.

The value of special drawing rights (SDRs) was higher by $26.2 million in the week under review at $4.00 billion.

Gold reserves were static at $19.83 billion. The gold reserves had plunged by $346.2 million in the week ended March 6.

BENGALURU | NEW DELHI: India's top technology firms are expected to post their worst fourth-quarter results since 2010, hurt by currency volatility that some analysts warned could hinder growth in the coming quarters and dampen discretionary spending by clients.

Several analysts said cross currency volatility will hit sequential revenue growth and profit margins of top IT firms in reported currency, adding to the seasonal weakness associated with the final fiscal quarter. On average, re..

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