The Indian benchmark indices reversed the losses made earlier in the week and gained over 1% each on Thursday. The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to keep interest rates steady led to heavy buying in the utilities, capital goods, auto, power, metal, banks and financials sectors.

The BSE Sensex surged 352.03 points (1.08%) to close at 32,949.21. The NSE Nifty rose 122.60 points (1.22%) to finish at 10,166.70.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel, Asian Paints, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Steel and Bajaj Auto. On the Nifty50, stocks of GAIL, Bharti Airtel, Tech Mahindra, UPL and Tata Power led the gains. The stocks that declined the most on both indices were Coal India, Tata Consultancy Services, Cipla, Wipro and Sun Pharma.

Other Asian markets showed a mixed trend. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.45% and the Hong Kong Hang Seng 0.28%. The Shanghai market declined by 0.67% and the Taiwan TSEC 50 Index by 0.37%.

The Indian rupee was trading five paise down at 64.57 to the United States dollar at 4.52 pm.