Indian shares ended a choppy session little changed on Tuesday, with risk sentiment dented to a degree by heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
The risk of a wider conflict in the Middle East has lessened in the short term but Iran still poses a significant danger as it considers striking Israel, Americas top general, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, said on Monday.
Elsewhere, Ukraine said it has a new long-range weapon to strike deep into Russia after a wave of Russian missiles and drones targeted Ukraines electrical infrastructure in the largest such attack in weeks.
A 3 percent rise in oil prices over the previous three sessions and caution ahead of key U.S. inflation figures and earnings from AI darling Nvidia due later in the week also kept investors on the sidelines.
The benchmark S&P/BSE Sensex ended the session up 13.65 points at 81,711.76 while the broader NSE Nifty index settled 7.15 points higher at 25,017.75.
Broader markets outperformed, with the mid-cap and small-cap indexes on the BSE rising 0.6 percent and half a percent, respectively.
Among the top gainers, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Life, Maruti Suzuki India, SBI Life and Bajaj FinServ all rose around 2 percent.
Vodafone Idea advanced 1.3 percent after reports emerged that the government has no immediate plans to divest its stake in the company and that the Department of Telecommunication is evaluating a request by the telecom firm for a potential waiver of bank guarantees on regulatory dues of Rs. 24,747 crores.
Datamatics Global Services soared 20 percent after the company launched a new partner onboarding co-pilot on the Microsoft Teams store.
On the losing side, Coal India, Grasim, Hindustan Unilever, Titan Company and JSW Steel dropped 1-2 percent.