Kolkata, July 12 - Marxist patriarch and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu was admitted to a private hospital Sunday following breathing trouble, hospital sources said.

Basu, who turned 96 on July 8, was taken in an ambulance to the AMRI hospital near his Salt Lake residence of Indira Bhavan after he spent a restless night.

He has been admitted to the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit, the sources said.

'He is now better,' the Communist Party of India-Marxist leader's son Chandan Basu told reporters.