Indian shares swung between gains and losses on Tuesday on caution ahead of the Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1 percent after wobbling between positive and negative territory for much of the morning.
At a two-day meeting beginning later on Tuesday, the Fed is expected to take another step toward policy normalization and announce plans to begin unwinding its $4.2 trillion portfolio of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, Reuters reported.
At 0650 GMT, the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.09 percent at 32,394 while the broader NSE Nifty lost 0.10 percent to 10,143.
Among the top Sensex gainers: Tata Motors advanced 5 percent, Kotak Mahindra Bank jumped 2.4 percent, Sun Pharma gained 0.6 percent while Wipro gained 0.3 percent.
Laggards included Coal India down 2.4 percent, Bharti Airtel fell 1.6 percent, Axis Bank dropped 1.1 percent while ITC lost 1 percent.
Japirakash Associates slumped 11 percent on media reports Supreme Court directed the company to deposit Rs 2,000 crore with it in connection with insolvency proceedings involving Jaypee Infratech.
However, Tata Chemicals and Tata Global Beverages gained 1 percent each after block deals.
Market breadth was in the favour of gainers, with about 2 stocks advancing to every 1 stock that declined.
