BUZZ — IT leads Indian shares higher after HCLTech tops Q2 profit estimate

* India's Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex up 0.6% * IT stocks jump 4%, led by 7% surge in HCLTech after quarterly profit beat * Jefferies upgrades HCLT to "hold" from "underperform", says co among few large IT firms offering over 5% constant currency revenue growth * Ten of 16 sectors gain; small-caps down 0.8%, while mid-caps up 0.2% * Rupee strengthens for second consecutive day to 95.235 per dollar on RBI measures to stem slide * Asian stocks slide, led by a 6% slump in South Korea's KOSPI on sell-off in chipmakers MKTS/GLOB * Optical fibre makers Sterlite Technologies and HFCL, which supply to data centers, down 4.8% and 2.2%, respectively, as sell-off in AI-linked stocks globally hits sentiment * Vikran Engineering jumps 12.6% after its unit secured funding from IREDA (Reporting by Vivek Kumar M) ((VivekKumar.M@thomsonreuters.com;)