BENGALURU: Indian shares started lower on Thursday, after the minutes of Federal Reserve's July meeting signalled a slowdown in the pace of future rate hikes.

The NSE Nifty 50 index was down 0.3% at 17,883.15 as of 0355 GMT while the S&P BSE Sensex traded 0.3% lower at 60,046.34.

Pharma and IT stocks weighed on sentiment, with the Nifty Pharma index down 1.3%.

The Fed minutes showed policymakers committed to raising rates as high as necessary to bring inflation under control.

U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday, with indexes volatile after the minutes, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.22% on Thursday.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)