And an update on the star of today -- Yuvraj Singh -- who returned home to Gurgaon after three months of chemotherapy in the US.

BCCI Vice President Rajiv Shukla said Yuvraj Singh will be going into his training mode very shortly and make a comeback into the Indian squad after regaining the strength.

"Definitely, he is very keen to come back and he is going into his training mode very shortly. And after regaining the strength, he will definitely make a come back," he said.

Shukla, who is also the chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council, further said Yuvraj is looking much better in terms of medical condition.

"I can''t divulge what he has spoken to me, but I can definitely tell you he is much better (than) what I had expected. After struggling with such a disease, if somebody is looking so better, I mean in terms of medical conditions. I think he is improving a lot and soon he will be back on the field," he said. 

bubba watson @bubbawatson  Finally home! Crazy day. I keep checking it wasn't a dream, I have "The Green Jacket".

If you haven't the faintest who the man is, read further...

American Bubba Watson parred the second sudden-death playoff hole to defeat South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen and capture the 76th Masters on Sunday for his first major golf championship. The 33-year-old US left-hander became the eighth first-time major winner in a row and only the third southpaw to claim the green jacket symbolic of Masters supremacy after three-time winner Phil Mickelson and Canada'sMike Weir. "I never got this far in my dreams, to talk," Watson said when asked to put his emotions into words. "It's a blessing for sure." 

JuD chief, the man responsible for the Mumbai attacks, on whose head the US has placed a $10 million bounty -- Hafiz Saed -- in his own words. Excerpts from the translated interveiw on the Indian Express.

Read

Hopes were fading fast for finding any surviors buried under tonnes of ice as Pakistani military rescuers were hampered by fresh snowfall and bad weather in an increasingly desperate search for 139 people, mostly soldiers, hit by an avalanche in Siachen sector, close to the Indian border.

Almost 52 hours after mounds of snow came crushing down on to the remote Battalion headquarters of the army high up in Karakoram, rescuers were yet to come across any survivors or any bodies despite pressing sniffer dogs and specialised snow clearing equipment.

An eight-member team of US experts, which arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan yesterday to help in the rescue efforts, was unable to travel to Gyari, the site of the accident, this morning due to bad weather.

The US Embassy spokesman said authorities were standing by to provide any assistance need by their Pakistani counterparts.

Daytime temperature dipped to minus 15 degrees Celsius following heavy snowfall in the region where the avalanche occurred on Saturday, and the rescuers were hampered by the extreme weather conditions.

Read the related story on the Telegraph. Brutal reminder from frozen frontier

"As a community activist in Queens, Muhammad Rashid has fought for the rights of immigrants held in detention, sought the preservation of local movie theaters and held a street fair to promote diversity, ' Sarah Maslin Nirwrites in The New York Times. "But few of those causes brought him anywhere near as much grief and controversy as his stance on yoga."

Read the NYT report

It did not take Bilawal Bhutto Zardari long during his first visit to India to show he is a very different type of political prince than Rahul Gandhi -- at least when it comes to public relations. The moment the son of Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, and the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto landed Sunday in New Delhi, he launched what became a daylong monologue on Twitter.

Read the blog on the NYT

On 22 March, Jamphel Yeshi, a 27-year-old Tibetan, burnt himself to death in protest against Chinese oppression in Tibet. He had decided on it 10 days ago. What happened in between?

Read the story on Open magazine.

It runs to a pattern. When under attack, the Pavlovian response of many politicians is to hit out at the media. And leading the charge once again is our beloved Mamatadi.

The editorial on the Hindustan Times

Playboy, sports star -- and possibly Pakistan's next prime minister. Read

Despite the knowledge that he had developed a serious health problem, winning the World Cup was at the top of Yuvraj Singh's priority list around the time the mega-event was on, his father Yograj said today.

"I salute the fighter, the soldier Yuvraj Singh. Today, I am a proud father. Before last year's World Cup, he told me that 'dad, winning the Cup is very important'. He told me that whatever happens to him won't matter, but 'if we win the Cup, it will be a great achievement, which will make the whole country proud'," an emotional Yograj said today.

"He is a rare person. He is a gem and any parent will be proud to have such a son. Not many know that his condition was not good during the World Cup. Sometimes, he used to vomit blood but he was determined to lift the Cup for the country. "Over the next few days, he will himself tell everything to the media," Yograj, cricketer-turned-film actor, said. 

Update on the Aarushi Talwar murder case. The Allahabad HC suspends Nupur Talwar's bail plea in the double murder case of her daughter Aarushi and servant Hemraj. The HC stays the order giving time to Talwar to appear before the court and asks her to file a reply within three weeks.    

Welcoming Yuvraj Singh on his return to the country, Delhi Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag today said he will personally meet his India teammate this week and inquire about his health.

Received by his mother Shabnam at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, Yuvraj came on a Jet Airways flight this morning after spending some days in London to recuperate from the after-effects of the chemotherapy.

"I am very happy Yuvraj is back (from the US). We all prayed for him. In the coming 2-3 days I will go and personally meet him," Sehwag said during a promotional event here.

"He is presently under rehabilitation and I hope he will return to the field soon," he added. Sehwag's Daredevils teammate Kevin Pietersen praised Yuvraj for his fighting abilities and said he too will personally meet him this week.

 A doctor couple, arrested for allegedly leaving their 13-year-old maid locked-up and starving in their flat while vacationing in Bangkok, was today remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a Delhi court.

Dr Sanjay Verma and his medico wife Sumita Verma both were sent to judicial custody along with an alleged middleman, for his alleged role in bringing the girl here from her village in Jharkhand and her employment as maid through placement agency. The trio was sent to judicial custody after the Delhi police said it does not need them for further interrogation.

On a more serious note, on the WSJ.

India's water supplies might be drying up and the government is finally waking up to that fact. The question remains, though, if its efforts will be sufficient to avert a possible crisis. India has more than 17% of the world's population, but has a mere 4% of the world's renewable water resources and 2.6% of the world's land area. Read

Justice Markandey Katju, a former Supreme Court Justice turned chairman of the Press Council of India, has done it again. Already known for his recent views of the journalists he oversees -- they are of a very poor intellectual level' -- he has widened the focus of his condemnation to include approximately 1.08 billion anonymous Indians.

More on the WSJ

This is the story that has been playing on the channels all morning.

A three-month-old baby girl is battling for life at a government hospital in Bangalore after being allegedly tortured by her father.

Baby Afrin was admitted to the intensive care unit of Vani Vilas Hospital yesterday after vomiting blood and having breathing problems and would be kept under observation for 48 hours, hospital sources told PTI.

The baby's 19-year-old mother Reshma had filed a police complaint yesterday, charging her husband Omar Farooq with beating the child and even biting it in her absence. The man has been arrested.

The woman alleged that her husband, a car painter whom she married in 2010, did not want a girl child and that once she gave birth to Afrin, was continually harassing her to bring in Rs 1 lakh as dowry and threatened to end their lives otherwise, police said.

She said she noticed her child vomiting blood on April 7 morning and immediately took her to Bowring Hospital, where she was treated for a day and referred to Vani Vilas Hospital, where she is now being treated.

As part of its efforts to reach more people, the anti-corruption movement led Anna Hazare has introduced an SMS card which will provide subscribers with round the year updates about the campaign.

"We have procured one crore cards, each priced at Rs 20 and activists of India Against Corruption are distributing them among people," Hazare's associate Datta Awari told PTI from Ralegan Siddhi.

The SMS card will ensure that the holders are informed about the Hazare-led campaign's activities for a year, Awari said. "The users have to SMS the serial number of the scratch card, to 9223334545 and they will be given regular updates on our programmes throughout the year, in Hindi and English," he said.

The family of 80-year-old Pakistani national Khalil Chishti, currently being held in a jail in Rajasthan, today expressed joy at the Indian Supreme Court's order for his release on bail. Chishti's daughter Shoha told the media that she had seen the news of her father being granted bail on TV.

"We are all very happy. I came home and informed my mother, who offered special prayers of thanksgiving," she said. His release on bail was "due to God" and efforts by countless Pakistanis and Indians, she said. Chishti was serving life term in an Ajmer jail in a murder case of 1992.

The family had last met Chishti when it had travelled to Rajasthan in December last year, she added. She said she and her sister Aamna had written to President Asif Ali Zardari on April 5, before he embarked on a private visit to India, to take up the case of their father with the Indian leadership.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan criticised President Zardari's visit to India in the wake of the tragedy afflicted on Pakistan army in Siachin. Addressing a public gathering at College Ground on Sunday where some 20,000 to 25,000 people were in attendance, Imran said: "The nation will not forgive leaders who have no respect for the nation and its institutions, and who do not know how to stand by the state in trying times.'

Read the Tribune report

After a battle lasting almost two years, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has knuckled under to the Indian government, giving security forces in that country access to private instant messages. Experts say the change, first reported in the newsmagazine India Today, could lead to similar access for other spy agencies and government bodies around the world -- if they don't already have it.

Read more on the Star

Arguments in the Sankararaman murder case, in which Kanchi mutt seer Jayendra Saraswati and his junior Vijayendra Saraswati are the main accused, will commence in a local court here tomorrow.

Soft porn movies, which hit the box office in Malayalam in the late seventies and eighties are making a comeback in the film industry here as remakes. A host of old hits like I V Sasi directed 1978 film "Avalude Ravukal" (Her Nights), Antony Eastman's "Inaye Thedi" (in search of partner) in 1981 and late Sankaran Nair's 1975 film "Rasaleela" are some of the movies in the list.

More

Terming the movement of two Army units towards Delhi in mid-January as a routine drill, Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma today said no permission was required from the Government.

Appearing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, Sharma said the movement of the troops towards Delhi was a routine drill and no standard operating procedures were violated as it did not require permission from the Government, sources said.

It is learnt that some MPs were of the opinion that after the clarification of the Defence Ministry and the Army on the issue, the matter should be treated as closed.

This is for the second time that Sharma, along with Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen S K Singh, appeared before the panel on the issue. Both were quizzed by the MPs in the Standing Committee on April 4 after the media report of suspicious movement of troops near the capital. Then they had dismissed it as baseless.

Young Bilawal Zardari Bhutto has apparently learned from foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar's veni, vidi, Gucci charm offensive last year. Less is more. Here is what we already knew about the Pakistan People's Party's dashing young chieftain before he set foot in India.

He is 23, his first language is English, and he studies history at Oxford. He might be a ratherbookish young man with Armani glasses and shy demeanour but he also likes horse riding and has a black belt in taekwondo.

His name was changed from Bilawal Zardari to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari though somewhere along the line it seems to have flipped to Bilawal Zardari Bhutto. His father also decided not to become the chief of Zardari tribe and passed that ceremonial mantle to the son.

Read more on Firstpost.com

Renowned nuclear scientist and architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has claimed that former President Pervez Musharraf had caused enormous damage to the country and could have proved to be the Gorbachev of Pakistan', had he stayed in power for more time.

He also ruled out the possibility of a rollback of Pakistan's nuclear programme and added had Musharraf got some more time he could have done so, The Nation reports. He further said that Musharraf had pushed the country into a deep crisis and claimed the country was still paying for wrong steps even after almost a decade, that was reflected in the Balochistan crisis.

Angered over their friend being caught while cheating in examination, two youths ran their car over a teacher in Haryana's Sonepat district, police said.

The youths identified as Vikram and Hariom ran their car over 37-year-old Rakesh Kumar, a teacher of Ramjas Public School in Sonepat, on Saturday evening. He later died in a hospital, Sonepat DSP Surinder Malik said.

Human Rights Activist Ansar Burney, who is the chairperson of the Ansar Burney Trust International and Seafarers Rights International (UK) and was instrumental in getting the Indian hostages on board a hijacked ship MV Iceberg released from the clutches of Somali captors said he welcomed the verdict and thanked the SC for granting bail to Dr Chisti.

Dr Chishti's nephew says he hopes he will be deported to Pakistan soon in view of his poor health.

Human rights activists had appealed to President Pratibha Patil requesting her to grant the release of Dr Mohammed Khaleel Chisti, who has been on trial in India for the past 19 years on a murder charge. Out on bail till recently, Chisti, an octogenarian, was convicted in January this year and has been in prison since past four months. He had spent 20 days in prison prior to his conviction. Presently unwell, Chisti is lodged in Ajmer's Prison Hospital.

Read the background on the Sunday Guardian.

Sachin Tendulkar, who sustained a finger injury in his left-hand and was retired hurt, when he tried to fend off an ugly snorter from Chennai Super Kings bowler Doug Bollinger in the IPL opener on Wednesday, tweeted today.

He says, "Finger still not looking good. Had to aspirate blood from my finger twice in 4 days." See the picture.  

It was the fifth ball of the ninth over and Tendulkar who was batting on 15 got a short ball from Bollinger. It climbed onto him as the delivery hit one of the green patches and reared up uncomfortably. Tendulkar could just fend it off as it hit him on the glove. 

The massacre took place after 59 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya were burnt to death after a fire broke out in the S6 compartment of Sabarmati Express train at Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, reports TOI.

After allegations that Gujarat Police had not been able to investigate the case impartially, it was handed over to the Supreme Court-appointed SIT, which filed a chargesheet against 47 accused in the case.

The SIT urged the court to place the massacre in the rarest of the rare category. It is, therefore, likely to seek capital punishment or life sentence for the accused who were allegedly actively involved in the massacre. Out of the 10 riot cases investigated by the SIT on the instructions of the Supreme Court Court, the Ode massacre is the third in which a judgement will be given.

A special court in Gujarat delivered its verdict on the massacre in Ode village during the riots of 2002. At least 23 people taking shelter in a house were killed when a mob set it on fire during the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. While 47 people were charged with the massacre, two of them are absconding and one died during the course of the trial. Of the 47 accused, the court found 23 guilty of the massacre.

The massacre took place when a mob attacked a house on March 1, 2002 at Ode village in Anand district of Gujarat.

One of the more unheralded achievements of the PPP government has been the way it has repaired relations from the nadir of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when war seemed a very realistic possibility. Read the editorial in the Express Tribune, Pakistan.

Without an independent body to scrutinise the rules bureaucrats tack on to legislation, genuine reform of red tape will always be delayed. It is not news that India has a red tape problem.

Whether you are a day labourer in Jharkhand attempting to prove your official residence, a Delhi car owner who has to remember to get a "pollution under control certificate' four times a year, or a businessperson trying to do, well, almost anything, India's numerous rules and regulations can be both overwhelming and dispiriting. You could be forgiven for thinking these rules more often seem designed with bureaucrats in mind than citizens '" and you wouldn't be that wrong.

More on the Business Standard

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Vice President Rajeev Shukla has stressed that Pakistani players will not play in the Indian Premier League until the resumption of cricket ties between both sides.

He added there was no campaign or hatred against Pakistan and that he himself felt sad that Pakistani cricketers were not featuring in the IPL.

"No one is against Pakistan or Pakistani players in India or else we would not have allowed Pakistani commentators or umpires in the IPL 5 season. The reality is that everything is tied to the resumption of bilateral cricket ties between the two countries. Once that happens I think everything will happen automatically,' Shukla was quoted, as saying.

Life before the two assassinations

In the aftermath of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's India visit, the US media today said his pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer sent a message against Islamist extremism.

"No breakthroughs were announced, but both sides hailed the meeting as a sign of easing tensions along one of the world's most dangerous borders," The Los Angeles Times reported in a news dispatch from New Delhi. "Sunday's one-day visit was heavy on symbolism if not on substance," the daily said. 

The Los Angeles Times along with The Washington Post and The New York Times made specific mention of the Zardari's invitation to Singh to visit to Pakistan.

In a 19-second video on Twitter, Lance Armstrong had urged Yuvraj to keep moving forward optimistically. "Hi Yuvi, I am Lance Armstrong and welcome home. Man you have got one big following, I have heard about you every hour of every day since you have been diagnosed. We are pulling for you, so glad you are healthy now. Have a great life, don't look back, live strong buddy," the 40-year-old American had said.

Watch

After being diagnosed with the disease, Yuvraj underwent three sessions of chemotherapy and was discharged from his hospital in the United States last month. 

He is expected to announce his future plans and details about treatment that he underwent after returning to the country. Recently, Yuvraj met Sachin Tendulkar in London who had gone there to get a check up on a toe injury. 

Former Indian captain Anil Kumble had also visited Yuvraj when he was in the US. Yuvraj missed the entire Australian tour and will miss the Indian Premier League season 5 due to his ailment. 

Yuvraj had also received an inspiring video message from his "real life hero" Lance Armstrong -- the cycling legend whose own successful battle with cancer is well-documented. 

Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh, who was recuperating in London after undergoing chemotherapy for a rare germ cell cancer between his lungs, returned to the country on Monday, reports the Times of India. 

Yuvraj was received at the IGI Airport by his mother Shabnam. "Finally the day has come! i am going home tomorrow ! cant wait , excited to see my friends and family ..see you india!! mera bharat mahan!" Yuvraj had tweeted on Sunday. 

But the 30-year-old batsman is not expected to play for a few more months. Yuvraj was discharged on March 18 from a hospital in the United States. 

Pakistan needs 'substantial' evidence against Saeed: Gilani (Hindustan Times)
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has acknowledged that the case of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed was an "issue" between Pakistan and India but said Islamabad needs "substantial" evidence against him to try him in a court of law. Read

Manmohan Singh talks terror, Zardari harps on K-word (The Times of India)
Though Manmohan Singh raised the issue of terrorism, sources said Zardari focused on Kashmir, Sir Creek and Siachen. Read

Pak told to show hand on terror as India extends own: PM Pak visit on (Indian Express)
Talks: For normal ties, must act on terror, Zardari told as he takes a legal line on Saeed. Read

Zardari announces $1 million to Ajmer dargah (The Hindu)

At the end of his visit to the dargah of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, the Pakistan President said he felt a great spiritual happiness after coming to this holy place which was beyond description Read

Someone may have read too much (into movements of troops): MoS (Indian Express)
Troop movements need not be unnecessarily be interpreted as anti-establishment, says Pallam Raju. Read

Odisha: Maoists want to exchange abducted MLA with 30 prisoners (Hindustan Times)
In a new twist to BJD MLA Jhina Hikaka's hostage crisis in Odisha, Maoists have purportedly issued a fresh communication asking his wife to reach a village in Koraput district on April 10 along with 30 prisoners to pave way for the legislator's release. Read