Falling for the third straight session, the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange opened 48 points lower, at 17,545, on Thursday morning, on sustained selling by foreign funds and retail investors, on continued concerns over high interest rates, and weak cues from other Asian markets. Later, selling pressure intensified, and the Sensex had dropped 145 points, or 0.8 percent, to 17,448, in afternoon trade, a short while ago. The Sensex has already lost 444 points in the last two trading sessions. Other Asian stock markets in Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were down by between 0.1 percent and 2 percent. The regional markets fell, after the US central bank signaled that the US economic recovery was still fragile, and warned against sharp spending cuts.