NEW DELHI: The BSE Telecom index was trading as the top loser among the sectoral indices on BSE in Tuesday's trade.The index was trading 3.17 per cent down at 1,150 around 01:45 pm, with 15 stocks declining while only 2 -- GTL (up 0.74 per cent) and Himachal Futuristic Communications (up 0.40 per cent) -- advacning.
Idea Cellular (down 7.89 per cent), Sterlite Technologies (down 7.48 per cent) and Reliance Communications (down 7.30 per cent) were suffering strong losses.The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has cleared 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in Idea Cellular, paving the way for the merger of the carrier with Vodafone India, which will create India's No 1 telecom company by customers and revenue market share, replacing Bharti Airtel.
OnMobile Global (down 6.68 per cent), GTPL Hathway (down 6.67 per cent), Vindhya Telelinks (down 6.41 per cent), Aksh Optifibre (down 5.01 per cent), GTL Infrastructure (down 4.65 per cent) and ITI (down 3.97 per cent) also appeared among the top losers in the index.MTNL (down 3.53 per cent), Bharti Airtel (down 2.65 per cent), Tejas Networks (down 2.17 per cent), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (down 1.41 per cent) and Bharti Infratel (down 0.73 per cent) too were under pressure.Equity markets were in the negative zone on selling across sectors.Investors were holding their bets as the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee began its three-day meeting yesterday amid speculation that it may hike the key interest rate for the first time in over four years on account of firming inflation.Benchmark BSE Sensex was 92 points down at 34,920, while the NSE Nifty50 index was down 40 points at 10,588.
Among the 50 stocks in Nifty index, 13 were trading in the green, while 37 were in the red.
In the Sensex index, 8 stocks were up, while 23 were down.