Sri Lanka, Aug. 31 -- India played a decisive role in helping Sri Lanka through its worst economic crisis, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman personally pressing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to urgently support the country, former Sri Lankan Finance Minister Ali Sabry has revealed. This reveals the way India helps its neighbours while some countries try the debt trap.

In a clip of a podcast in the Impact Stories, Sabry said the tone of a crucial IMF meeting changed after Sitharaman spoke to the Fund's leadership on Sri Lanka's behalf in Washington in April 2022.

"When I went back to the meeting, the tone, the approach, the environment, everything had changed," Sabry said, recalling how an initially "reluctant" IMF leaders...