Firstpost Editor's Picks: Modi at SCO summit, Leila review, GDP overestimation claim; today's must-read stories

**Ignoring Pakistan, showing deftness in engaging with China and Russia: Narendra Modi in good form at SCO summit** At the SCO summit, Narendra Modi held two delegation-level talks with China and Russia where some important steps were taken towards stabilising the relation with two key foreign powers. He also handed an expected snub to Pakistan by ignoring Imran Khan’s pleas for “talks”. To the more serious end of the business, the prime minister showed that in his second term, he retains the maneuverable deftness to play the great power game into which India has been thrust due to the changing geopolitical environment. **_Leila_ review: Netflix's frighteningly self-aware dystopian series holds a mirror to Indian society** In the intricately fictionalised world of Leila, the lines between make-believe and horrifying reality are often blurred. It is what makes the viewing experience so visceral. The series is crisper than the book, putting elaborate adjectives aside in favour of pace. The visuals are stark in the series, under the direction of the ever-talented Shanker Raman. The production design is detailed and meticulous, and tells a story of its own. **GDP overestimation claim: Govt must address data pessimism by enlisting independent experts to end confusion** What India is facing this week after former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian suggested that the country may have overestimated by 2.5 percentage points its GDP growth for six years in order to explain sluggish jobs growth is an embarrassing situation in which the ones left holding the economic baby after the CEA quit are on the defensive. There is a need to quickly and decisively end the statistical controversy to reassure key stakeholders. **Amitav Ghosh on _Gun Island_, the theme of technology-as-magic, and why nothing is 'just a story'** Amitav Ghosh received the Jnanpith award earlier this week, becoming the first English writer to win India’s most prestigious literary prize. It’s fitting, therefore, that his latest novel Gun Island is a bit of a ‘greatest hits’ package, a convergence of themes and motifs that mark his previous work — climate change (The Great Derangement), xenophobia/political violence (The Shadow Lines), the unlikely symbiosis of science and witchcraft (The Calcutta Chromosome) and even a splash of maritime history (The Ibis Trilogy). World Cup Memories: ‘We were looking at getting autographs,' Thomas Odoyo recalls Kenya's special win in 1996 The cricketing world and fans at the Nehru Stadium in Pune witnessed one 23 years ago on 29 February, 1996, a day etched in Kenyan cricket’s folklore. Like the Randy Orton RKO out of nowhere, Kenya KOed the West Indies to stun and delight in equal measure. “The win against West Indies is what started things for us,” former Kenya all-rounder Thomas Odoyo, who was a part of that historic win, tells Firstpost.