The Indian equities benchmark opened on a positive note on Thursday as indicated by the SGX index. At 9:19 am, the 30-share BSE Sensex was trading 575 points or 1.09 per cent higher, whereas the NSE Nifty 50 index advanced 170.10 points or 1.08 per cent at 15,862, after the US Federal Reserve hiked the interest rate by 75 basis points, highest since 1994 in order to tame inflation.