The problem with trying to crack an April Fool’s gag is that you never know which over-sensitive humourless sod of a reader is going to get upset with you. As a result of which, over the years we’ve seen a dwindling down of April Fool’s gags in the press. But there are the brave and the few who still dare to irk their readers. Of course, you wish some of them hadn’t bothered.

Here’s our roundup of the best and worst of today’s April Fool’s gags in the press.

First off, is the first mover of all the April Fool’s gags today. Firstpost came up with a lead story which stated that Narendra Modi has apologised for the Gujarat riots.

Did the article manage to pull the wool over our eyes? While some geniuses thought it was a genuine piece it also managed to pull a lot of people’s panties into a twist. The denizens of the land of the easily-offended and the Twitter-friendly immediately took to Twitter to voice their dismay and demand a fatwa against Firstpost for their un-funny article and temerity for cracking a joke about Modi’s lack of remorse.It’s safe to say that they wouldn’t get past minute 2 of an edgy stand-up act, and we’re not even talking of a 1^st of April gig. Their hearts might seize up.

While it might not have been the most stellar of April Fool articles, there were some funny points such as an unnamed Congressman suggesting Rahul – like Modi – come out with an apology too because “God knows Rahulji has a lot to apologise for”. And that Modi had clarified that his apology was for the riots that happened before his timea la Manmohan.

Firstpost’s second gag was kind of funny. It decided to give the nation a breather from Katju, by announcing that he had been made the head of RAW.The article quoted Digvijay Singh pointing out that given the low-profile a RAW chairman will have to keep, it would mean an “end to the daily nuisance” of tweets, open letters, blogposts, newspaper columns and what not. Amen to that!

An unexpected April Fool’s gem came from Rajdeep Sardesai before midnight. Sardesai took a break from telling us which song to tune into and what the weather was like in Delhi to pull a gag which had many of the Twitteratishaken and a little stirred and then making excuses for why they’d been made asses of by Rajdeep. Journalists woke up to an announcement by Sardesai claiming that Modi and Rahul had agreed to a televised debate. Well played, Rajdeep. Well played.

The IBN site though, didn’t manage to live up to Sardesai’s wit. Ibnlive.com had a number of stories ranging from India bringing black money back to the country to Rajnikanth contesting TN elections incognito to Facebook now paying users for ‘Facebooking’. Yawwn!!

The British stole the limelight with Guardian’s lead story announcing the launch of Guardian Goggles – “because life’s too short to think for yourself”. They’d even shot a video with the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger explaining the technology. The Guardian Goggles specs would offer “immersive liberal insight” and come with “anti-bigotry technology” to automatically remove some columnists. They even had a quote from the “Professor of Disruptive Thinkovation”.

The joint award for the most WTF April Fool’s gag goes to HT City which announced that Brangelina might tie the knot in Jodhpur. If you could be bothered to read the story on Page 9, and had not died of boredom from wading through the news reports by then, you were informed that it was an April Fool’s gag.

Till next year then. In the meantime, you might as well have a look at our line-up of April Fools’ articles. If you get offended, do RT our articles. That seems to be the best way to express displeasure with the published word.

Image By: Sakshi Bhatia