Indian shares end higher ----

BENGALURU, Oct 14 (Reuters): Indian shares closed 1 per cent higher on Friday, led by gains in IT giant Infosys and banks, but still ended a volatile week in the red.
The NSE Nifty 50 index settled 1.01 per cent higher at 17,185.70, and the S&P BSE Sensex advanced 1.2 per cent to 57,919.97.
Both indexes rose as much as 2 per cent in the session before weakness in energy and automobile stocks weighed them down.
The benchmark indexes have risen in only two sessions this week, with Nifty 50 notching a weekly loss of about 0.7 per cent and Sensex about 0.5 per cent.
Still, they have been trading in a narrow range, oscillating between their respective 50- and 100-day moving averages for 14 sessions in a row now.
"For the last two weeks, we are seeing more of a consolidation in our market and it might continue, but with the start of the earnings session, volatility has increased substantially," said Ajit Mishra, vice president - research at Religare Broking.
"The prudent approach is to go stock-specific with focus on risk management," Mishra said, adding, that selective purchases in IT stocks as well as "buoyancy in the banking heavyweights", were helping lift the market even on weak global cues.
Among stocks, Infosys Ltd closed 3.8 per cent higher after posting its biggest intraday percentage gain since early January 2021 and was the top boost to the Nifty 50 index. The Nifty IT index settled 1.63 per cent up.
The country's No.2 IT services company reported a bigger-than-expected increase in second-quarter profit, led by strong expansion in margin.
Nifty's private sector bank and finance indexes also supported the market, gaining 1.7 per cent and 1.82 per cent, respectively.