BANGALORE (India) - AN INDIAN girl born with four legs and four arms appeared in public for the first time on Tuesday since a gruelling operation to remove her extra limbs.

Two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma, who was named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, was carried in her father's arms at a press conference, looking somewhat subdued, her legs in a blue cast.

'I am happy to announce that she will be out of intensive care today,' Dr Sharan Patil, who lead a team of around 30 in Lakshmi's surgery, told reporters at the Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, Southern India.

'We have taken her off all the monitoring. She is coping very well.'

A week ago, doctors operated for more than a day to remove what amounted to Lakshmi's headless identical twin sister, who was joined at the pelvis and who did not develop and separate properly in the womb.

The rare birth defect is known as a parasitic twin.

As well as cutting off the extra limbs, doctors also removed extra internal organs and corrected a deformed skeleton.

She had since been under intensive care at the hospital. Dr Patil said she was now eating semi-solid food and her wounds were healing.

'She recognised us as soon as she became conscious after the operation.' said Lakshmi's father, Shambu, a poor labourer from a village in the eastern state of Bihar.

'We are very happy to see her recovering.'

Lakshmi will still need another operation to correct her club feet, doctors said, but she will probably not be well enough for more surgery for at least a couple weeks. -- REUTERS