MUMBAI : Equity benchmarks remained strong despite profit booking. The Sensex was up 166.15 points or 0.59 percent at 28142.67 and the Nifty rose 55.70 points or 0.65 percent to 8646.35.About 1397 shares advanced against 762 declining shares on the BSE.

Delta Corp shares surged nearly 6 percent intraday after signing a leave and license agreement for premises in the Denzong Regency Hotel, Gangtok, Sikkim, to operate a casino.”…has also obtained a provisional license from the Government of Sikkim under the Sikkim Casino (Control & Tax) Act, 2002 for the same,” the gaming company said, adding it is in the process of refurbishing and getting the premises ‘casino ready’ which should be completed in the next three months.

In addition to three offshore and one onshore casino in Goa, Delta will strengthen its presence by adding this Casino in Sikkim.

Dr Reddy’s Labs crashed 9 percent after dismal set of earnings in Q1 due to US pricing issue. Jefferies has downgraded the stock to underperform from hold with a reduced target price of Rs 2850 per share. It has also cut FY17-18 earnings estimates by 28-14 percent and expects earnings to remain flat over FY16-18.

ICICI Bank and Maruti Suzuki topped the buying list on Sensex, up more than 3 percent followed by HDFC, Tata Motors, L&T, SBI and BHEL.