The BSE Banking index rose nearly 1 percent on Thursday as banks shrugged off rising trend in rates and climbed on hopes robust economic growth will boost demand for loans.

Federal Bank shares gained 2.6 percent and ended as the top gainer in the index, followed by Bank of Baroda which gained 2.5 percent.

The BSE Oil & Gas Index closed as the top sectoral loser on Wednesday, falling 1.92 percent mainly on losses in Reliance Industries which saw brokerage downgrades.

Shares of Reliance Industries fell 3 percent after brokerages such as Edelweiss, Motilal Oswal and IIFL downgraded the firm saying the company would take longer to increase gas production at the KG-D6 block.

There is some bad news for people who have bought cashless health insurance policies.

Media reports say many insurance companies providing cashless health insurance have stopped direct payment of treatment charges to 150-odd high-end hospitals in New Delhi and surrounding areas from July 1.

Shares in Infosys Technologies, India’s second-largest outsourcer, rose as much as nearly 2 percent to a record high of 2,882 rupees on Friday on optimism about quarterly earnings next week.

The company unveils its quarterly earnings on June 13. Its earnings are often dubbed as a trendsetter for sectoral peers.

Oil marketing firms posted decent gains on Thursday, with BPCL’s 5.6 percent rise vaulting it to the top of the gainers list in the BSE Oil & Gas Index.

Other firms like IOC, the country’s biggest oil retailer, rose 2.2 percent, while HPCL and Essar Oil ended 3.5 percent and 2.6 percent higher respectively.

It was a weak day of trade for energy counters which saw the BSE Oil & Gas Index topping the list of sectoral losers with a 1.7 percent fall.

Weighing on the sectoral index and the Sensex was Reliance Industries which fell 1.8 percent to 1052 rupees.

The BSE IT Index gained 1.7 percent on Tuesday as expectations of revenue growth for the June quarter pushed up export-focused outsourcing firms.

All stocks in the IT index, except Mphasis, closed in positive territory, with Rolta India leading the list of gainers with a jump of 4.1 percent.

The BSE Oil & Gas index ended 0.8 percent lower on Monday with all but one of its constituent stocks closing in the red.

The big mover of the day was Reliance Natural, which dropped 27.2 percent after a deal to fold into sister firm Reliance Power valued the company at a steep discount to its market capitalisation on Friday.

India’s benchmark stock index did reasonably well in the first half of 2010 as compared to its emerging market peers. The Sensex gained 1.4 percent during the period, and outperformed China’s Shanghai Composite Index and Brazil’s Bovespa which declined 9.6 percent and 26.8 percent respectively.

Shares in Reliance Industries, India’s top listed firm which has the heaviest weight in the index, barely changed during the period, but a Supreme Court ruling on a gas dispute and Ambani brothers reconciliation kept the company in focus.

Shares in cigarette-to-hotel business chain ITC rose 2.6 percent on Wednesday to top the list of Sensex gainers on better earnings expectations.

The stock, which closed at 304.75 rupees, was among the big gainers on the BSE FMCG Index which topped the sectoral list with a rise of 1.9 percent.