Indian equity markets open flat, Sensex up 18 points

Indian equity markets opened flat on Thursday with BSE Sensex up 0.09% to 28,415 points and NSE Nifty 50 to 0.2% at 8,739.85 points.

At 1000 hours, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) was trading up 53.95 points or 0.19% while the wider 51-scrip Nifty was also trading at 17.25 points or 0.20 per cent higher at 8,743.85 points.

Shares of Reliance communications were in focus after talks of their merger deal with Aircel to become India's fourth largest telecom provider.

The stocks of the company were trading up 3.04% to Rs 52.90 per share on BSE.

The Indian National Rupee was trading up 7 paise to 66.82 against the dollar in early trade on Thursday.

The top five gainers on BSE were Rattan Tata India Power (9.26%), MMTC (5.73%), Unitech (5.58%), Jindal Steel (3.55%) and Monsanto (3.49%).

Among the losers were BEML (6.68%), Prestige (2.87%), Ashok Leyland (2.72%) Max Financial Services Ltd (2.45%) and Yes Bank (2.43%).