first the good news finance minister arun jaitley is looking trim and fit hes engaged and energetic and now the better news jaitley is excited about the slew of measures the government will unfold in the coming days not just that he seems prepared to try and persuade reserve bank governor raghuram rajan to relent and reduce interest rates that he feels will act as the spark to ignite growth jaitley met tois senior editors sidhartha and surojit gupta for a freewheeling interaction he discussed his health the challenges facing the economy and the governments reform agenda while acknowledging that a finance minister can revamp the economy only if he enjoys the full backing of the prime minister which he said he was grateful to have excerptsyou are back at work after the surgerywas it a trying time i elected to have a surgical intervention for weight management which would eventually have a positive impact on management of my diabetes a long problem with me my surgery was conducted at max hospital by dr pradeep choubey and it went off very successfully i can already feel its impact in the form of weight loss as well as its consequential impact on my diabetes problem subsequently i suffered from pneumonia for which i was treated both at max and aiims i am grateful to doctors in both the hospitals for having contributed positively to controlling that problem i am feeling much fitter nowso are you now ready to take on the challenges to revive the economy this government got such a massive mandate for a principal reason people believe it can take on the challenges as far as the economy was concerned economic reforms are not a oneoff thing as far as the present government is concerned it will surely and doggedly move in the direction to carry forward the new generation of reforms so that we can revive the indian economy which in the last few years of the upa government had slowed down considerably there was a loss of confidence as far as the indian economy was concerned the world was losing interest in india we were falling off the global radar as far as investments were concerned there was a sense of frustration in our own industry among our own investors decisionmaking had considerably slowed down growth rates had slowed down revenue buoyancy had slowed down and the challenge when the present government took over was extremely serious there were of course two initial advantages with the present governmentthe first was that the political change that came with the general elections itself was a signal to the world and a positive signal the second was that we had a clear majority in parliament at least in the lok sabha i must straightaway confess to a third advantage which i personally have is having the backing of the prime minister who is strong and decisive unless a finance minister has the complete backing of the