Implied volatility is the market's expectation of how far NIFTY will move, backed out of live option prices on the NSE chain. This page shows three cuts of it: the IV smile, which plots call and put IV across strikes for one expiry; ATM IV through the session; and the term structure, which plots at-the-money IV across expiries. Higher IV means richer premiums and a wider expected range.
NIFTY is the NSE benchmark of 50 large-cap stocks and carries the deepest option liquidity in India, so its chain is usually the cleanest place to read positioning. The shape matters as much as the level — downside puts usually price above upside calls, and that asymmetry is the volatility skew, a read on demand for crash protection. An inverted term structure, where the nearest expiry carries the highest IV, points at a near-term event. IV is an expectation, not a direction, so read it beside the option chain and open interest linked above.