BENGALURU: Indian shares accelerated their slide to nearly 3% late on Monday morning, in their steepest intra-day drop in two months, but fared better than their Asian peers amid a global sell-off in equities on fears of a slowdown in U.S. economic growth.

The NSE Nifty 50 index slid 2.85% to 24,016.35, as of 11:24 a.m IST and the S&P BSE Sensex dropped 2.85% to 78,681.

U.S. jobs growth slowed more than expected in July, data showed on Friday. Nonfarm payrolls were well below expectations, the previous month's numbers were revised lower and crucially, the unemployment rate climbed to a near three-year high.

Asian equities tanked, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index dropping 4.7%. Japan's Nikkei plunged 13%, while U.S. stock futures continued their tumble from Friday, with Nasdaq futures down 5%.

"Global equities are reacting to fears of economic weakness in the U.S.," said Trideep Bhattacharya, president and chief investment officer of equities at Edelweiss Mutual Fund.

Volatility in the Indian market rose to a two-month high and analysts expect it to remain elevated.

The weakness was broad, with all 13 major stock sub-indexes in the red, led by the metal index's 5% slide.

The small-cap and mid-cap indexes retreated more than 2% each.

The rupee fell to a record low and bond yields dropped to their lowest in 2 years.

Despite the drop in Indian stocks, analysts remained confident of their medium-term prospects when compared to other Asian and emerging markets.

"The Indian stock market is much more resilient than other Asian and emerging markets in the face of a U.S. downturn because the market is driven by domestic money," said Christopher Wood, head of global equity strategy at Jefferies.

"We are glad that 26% of our global long-only portfolio is in India given that this is the one market globally where there is unambiguously healthy demand for equity," Wood added.

(Reporting by Sethuraman NR and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)