Indian Shares End Higher On Easing Geopolitical Tensions, IT Stocks Shine

(RTTNews) - Indian shares eked out modest gains on Tuesday amid easing tensions surrounding Iran and Russia.

The U.S. and Iran will resume talks in Geneva today to address their nuclear dispute. Representatives of Ukraine and Russia will also meet in Geneva today and tomorrow for a fresh round of U.S.-mediated peace talks.

The benchmark BSE Sensex recovered from an early slide to end the session up 173.81 points, or 0.21 percent, at 83,450.96.

The broader NSE Nifty index inched up by 42.65 points, or 0.17 percent, to 25,725.40 while the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes rose 0.3 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was strong on the BSE, with 2,443 shares rising while 1,758 shares declined and 151 shares closed unchanged.

ITC jumped 2.3 percent after reportedly hiking cigarette prices to counter new excise duties.

IT stocks bounced back after recent string of losses, with Infosys climbing nearly 2 percent after saying that artificial intelligence services accounted for 5.5 percent of its revenue in the December quarter.

Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies, Adani Ports, Titan Company, Asian Paints, Larsen & Toubro, BEL and ITC gained 1-2 percent.

On the flip side, KWIL, which made its stock market debut on February 16 following the demerger of the ice cream business from Hindustan Unilever, plummeted 5 percent.