Update:
Used flasher to reboot it with the flasher -R command.
Worked like a charm.

It initially did not recognize the phone, and the
- Charging only
- Sync and Connect
option came up.
On selecting Sync and Connect, it recognized the phone, and flasher -R caused a restart.
On restarting, everything seems to be working fine.

Thank you..!


P.S. Any thoughts on what could have caused such selective app-impairment would be appreciated.