Indian shares ended higher for a fifth straight session on Wednesday, with gains across most verticals, as investor sentiment was buoyed by a slew of upbeat quarterly results ahead of a key central bank policy meet which concludes on Thursday. The Reserve Bank of India is likely to change its monetary policy stance to "neutral" from "calibrated tightening", in the first meet under the leadership of Shaktikanta Das, who was appointed last December.

The benchmark BSE index closed up 0.98 percent at 36,975.23 while the broader NSE index ended 1.17 percent higher at 11,062.45. Both the indexes recorded their best close since September. Shares of Cipla Ltd closed 5.3 percent higher after posting December-quarter results, while Tech Mahindra Ltd, which led gains in IT stocks after a strong quarterly perfroamnce, ended up 8 percent.

Copyright Reuters, 2019