The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher on Wednesday led by gains in Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Titan, HDFC, Tata Consultancy Services and Mahindra - Mahindra.

The Sensex rose as much as 139 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,421.50.

Meanwhile, Asian shares fell on Wednesday as weak Chinese economic data reinforced worries about slowing growth globally as well as in the world's second-biggest economy amid fraught nerves over a still-dominant pandemic and tapering of central banks' stimulus.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.82 per cent, extending earlier losses after the release of the Chinese data, while Tokyo's Nikkei shed 0.89 per cent, moving off a more than 31-year closing-high the day before.As of 9:26 am, the Sensex was up 103 points at 58,350 and Nifty 50 index advanced 33 points to 17,412.Back home, eleven of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Media index's nearly 5 per cent gain.

Nifty Oil - Gas, Consumer Durables, Realty, FMCG and Auto indices also rose between 0.4-1 per cent.On the other hand, Metal, Private Bank, Bank and Financial Services indexes were trading lower.Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.64 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.23 per cent.Bharti Airtel was among the top Nifty gainer, the stock touched record high of Rs 704.95.

ONGC, Titan, NTPC, HDFC Life, Mahindra - Mahindra, Shree Cements, Indian Oil, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp and Power Grid were also among the gainers.On the flipside, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, HCL Technologies, TCS, ITC, Bharat Petroleum, Eicher Motors, State Bank of India and Dr Reddy's Labs were among the laggards.The overall market breadth was positive as 1,907 shares were advancing while 771 were declining on the BSE.