Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after being discharged from AIIMS (Press Trust of India photo)
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has written to a nurse at Delhi's state-run AIIMS hospital, expressing thanks for the care he received. "I shall be eternally grateful for the extremely competent and professional manner in which you handled me as a patient," he said in his note dated October 6.
(Read full letter)Mr Jaitley, 61, returned to work two weeks ago after a long illness. He handles the key ministries of Defence and Finance.
Mr Jaitley was first admitted for nearly a month to a private hospital in the capital for gastric bypass surgery to treat weight gain he had suffered because of a long-standing diabetic condition.
After being released, he was re-admitted to AIIMS soon after to recover from an infection and was treated for more than a week at an isolation ward.
His illness forced him to skip a meeting last month of finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations in Australia.
Since he returned to work, the minister has been busy - he has announced a series of important economic reforms, including removing diesel prices from government control, which will remove one of India's costliest subsidies.