Indian shares fell in the morning trades as investors sentiments reamined subdued on US fiscal cliff issues and amid escalating protests in Greece over austerity measures taken by the governmnet to curb burgeoning debt menace.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex index fell 111 points down to 18,508.07 while National Stock Exchange's Nifty index shed 32points and traded at 5,634.35.

Software makers, metal and auto sectors led decline on BSE while defensive sectors suchs consumer durables gained ground in the opening trades.

Global market sentiments reamined muted on Thursday on concerns over U.S. fiscal woes and amid uncertainty over Greece's bailout.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.28% to 831.75 comapred to previous clos eof 842.51.

Following suite, the Asian markets began largely in the red. Nikkei and  Shanghai Composite up 1.1% and 0.4% were the notable exceptions. Nikkei gained  with banks aided by earnings and a weaker yen helping exporters.

The top Sensex losers are Sun Pharmaceuticals and Infosys which dropped over 2% each while Bharti Airtel and GAIL led the gains, rising nearly 2-4% on the BSE.

Among the individual stock movers, DLF rose 1% to Rs 204.85 on its plans to offload Aman Hotel, identified among the group’s non-core assets, in the next few weeks.

Leading infrastructure firm Jaiprakash Associates declined 1.5% to Rs 89.25 as it reported an over 48% decline in its net profit to Rs 128 crore during the quarter ended September 30, 2012, largely due to hefty increases in finance costs and muted sales.

The broader markets traded down with the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices tarding lower by 0.2-0.3% each.

The overall breadth was negative as 926 stocks declined while 555 advanced on BSE.