Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 21 (ANI): Equity benchmark indices gained marginally during early hours on Thursday on firm global cues with broad-based buying across the counters.

At 10:15 am, the BSE SP Sensex was up by 159 points or 0.52 per cent at 30,978 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 48 points or 0.53 per cent at 9,115.

Except for Nifty IT, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the positive zone with Nifty auto up by 2.2 per cent, financial service by 1.4 per cent and private bank by 1.3 per cent.

Aviation stocks gained after the government announced that domestic airline operations will resume on May 25, more than two months after all flights were halted amid the COVID-19 crisis and countrywide lockdown.

InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of IndiGo, was up by 8.2 per cent to Rs 986.60 per share while SpiceJet surged 4.8 per cent to Rs 42.95 per unit.

Bajaj Auto accelerated by 4.4 per cent to Rs 2,670.10 per unit while Hero MotoCorp gained by 3.2 per cent and Eicher Motors by 1.1 per cent.

The other prominent gainers were Bharti Infratel, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Hindalco. Grasim, NTPC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Tech Mahindra traded with a negative bias.

Meanwhile, Asian shares dithered despite global equities and crude prices rallying overnight on hopes of a rapid economic recovery and government support.

Equities got a boost this week as governments around the world gradually loosened their coronavirus lockdown restrictions, raising investor hopes that the economic impact of the pandemic will be short-lived.

South Korea's Kospi was up by 0.47 per cent but Japan's Nikkei fell by 0.3 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped by 0.01 per cent. (ANI)