By Arnab Paul
(Reuters) - Indian shares rose on Monday, continuing their positive momentum from last week, with gains across most sectors led by financials as investors remained bullish heading into the last couple of weeks of calendar year 2018.
The broader NSE Nifty was up 0.55 percent at 10,864.95 as of 0610 GMT, while the benchmark BSE Sensex was 0.70 percent higher at 36,214.98.
Both the NSE and BSE indexes are on track for a fifth straight session of gains, extending an upward momentum from last week buoyed by state election results and the appointment of Shaktikanta Das as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor.
Das' bureaucratic links are expected to heal a rift between the government and the central bank, with expectations that the RBI might come up with measures to ease liquidity further following the government's demands.
The RBI board met on Friday to deliberate on its governance framework and decided the matter required "further examination".
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Separately, India's November trade deficit narrowed to $16.67 billion due to a fall in gold imports, the country's trade ministry said in a statement on Friday.
However, analysts expect global events to keep markets volatile in the near term.
"Definitely expecting some volatility in the near term due to global events like Fed meet, Brexit," said Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services.
"The valuations in the markets are already high and if the U.S. Fed Reserve says that it would not hike rates in the same frequency next year, expect valuations to rise even further."
Shares of power producer NTPC Ltd rose as much as 5.5 percent after brokerage Jefferies said the company would benefit from a regulatory move.
Vedanta Ltd's stock gained 5.8 percent after an environment court directed the Tamil Nadu state pollution regulator to pass fresh order of renewal of consent for the company's copper smelter within three weeks.
Shares of Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd and HDFC Bank were the biggest gainers in terms of weightage on the NSE index, contributing to nearly a third of the gains.
Shares of Tata Motors Ltd were the biggest percentage gainer on the NSE index, rising 3.7 percent.
(Reporting By Arnab Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
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