Sensex gains 100 pts post Cabinet reshuffle; RIL, ITC lead

Indian shares opened higher on Monday with the BSE Sensex gaining 100 points following the reshuffle of cabinet ministers yesterday. In the biggest reshuffle of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Cabinet, Manmohan Singh inducted 17 new faces and a total of 22 ministers giving several new and young faces a chance to prove their mettle as his government tries to remove the taint of scams and non-performance from its progress report.

Veerappa Moily received petroleum ministry while Ministry of State (MoS) (Independent) for Power has given to Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The 30-share BSE Sensex rose 114.41 points to 18,740 and the 50-share NSE Nifty went up 32 points to 5,696.25. But the rupee fell by 26 paise to 53.82 against the US dollar.Shares of Reliance Industries, Wipro, Dr Reddy's Labs, Hindalco, ITC, Tata Steel and Tata Power gained 1-1.5 percent.

Tata Motors, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Bharti, ICICI Bank, TCS, State Bank of India, ONGC and M&M were up. Hindustan Unilever shed another 0.3 percent following disappointing volume growth in Q2FY13.

Infosys, Sterlite Industries, Sun Pharma and PNB were under pressure. BHEL erased early gains immediately ahead of quarterly earnings today. The BSE Midcap Index rose 0.4 percent and Smallcap went up 0.6 percent. About two shares advanced for every share declining on the National Stock Exchange.

All UB group stocks caught in bear grip following a statement to Reuters by the promoter Vijay Mallya saying he would not sell priced assets to save Kingfisher Airlines. United Spirits tanked 5 percent and United Breweries Holdings lost 8 percent. United Breweries was down 4 percent. Kingfisher gained 5 percent Mallya is confident of licence suspension being revoked. "We will submit a robust revival plan to Directorate General of Civil Aviation," he said.

India Infoline was up 5 percent after strong numbers. Consolidated net profit jumped significantly to Rs 66 crore in the quarter ended September 2012 from Rs 22 crore in a year ago  period. CESC bounced back with 2 percent gains after Friday's sharp fall. Firstsource Solutions gained 2.5 percent after good results. HCC, Yes Bank, IRB Infrastructure, GMR Infra, GVK Power, Sintex Industries, Chambal Fertiliser and LIC Housing Finance were up 1-2 percent.