The key measure rose above 19,000 as strong global markets and a rebound in industrial output boosted investors' sentiment. This is the first time the Sensex has touched 19,000 levels since January 2008.

The Sensex was up 223 points at 19,023.24 while Nifty was 64 points higher at 5,704.85.

According to numbers released on Friday, growth in industrial production almost doubled to 13.8 per cent in July from the year-ago level on robust expansion in capital goods, and doused fears about any slowdown in demand.

The gains in the Indian markets on Monday were broad-based, with banking, oil & gas, capital goods stocks seeing strong buying action. Investors have flocked to banking stocks in recent times on hopes that a strong credit growth spurred by an economic rebound would benefit the banks. Todays surge in banking stocks came despite the world's major central banks agreeing on Sunday to significantly increase the capital reserves rules for banks.

State Bank of India continued to post new highs with the stock rising 4.5 per cent today to 3,116. ICICI Bank jumped 3.3 per cent while HDFC added 2.6 per cent.

L&T rose over 1 per cent as the IIP numbers indicated a surge in capital goods output while Bhel added close to 0.9 per cent.

Energy stocks RIL was up 1.2 per cent while ONGC rose nearly 2 per cent as  benchmark crude for October delivery was up 76 cents at $77.21 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Besides that the government is planning to raise the price of state-administered, or APM, gas sold to sectors other than power and fertiliser by over 10 per cent to $5.25 per million British thermal unit, a move that it likely to benefit ONGC and OIL.which was up nearly 1.5 per cent.

Among other stocks in action, Kale Consultants as up nearly 13 per cent after Accelya acquired 35.61 per cent of the promoters stake in the company. JK Tyres was up 0.6 per cent as reports said that it plans to raise tyre prices by 3-4 per cent and expand capacity of Chennai facility. The Crisil stock was up nearly 6 per cent after its board approved a buyback at maximum price of Rs. 6,500/share.
 

Asian stock markets were higher, encouraged by Wall Street gains and Chinese economic data released over the weekend. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 92.05 points, or 1.0 percent, to end the Monday morning trading session at 9,331.22. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 1.5 percent, South Korea's Kospi was up 0.5 percent and Taiwan's benchmark was up 1.3 percent. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was 1.3 percent higher.

Sentiment across the region was bolstered by key economic indicators released by China on Saturday that showed a pickup in activity.

In New York Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average finished up 0.5 percent at 10,462.77, extending a rally that began nearly two weeks ago on newfound optimism about the global economy.