Firstpost Editor's Picks: Row over IAF strikes, GSP status withdrawal, and GoT trailer; today's must-read stories

Unpacking row over IAF air strikes in Balakot, satellite data Even as domestic debate over the scale and success of India’s 26 February air strikes have begun to gather momentum, the international wire-service giant Reuters used satellite photographs to assert the bombing was a dud, based on high-resolution images provided by PlanetLabs. Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar with extensive experience in analysing satellite images, made this blunt assertion: “The high-resolution images don’t show any evidence of bomb damage.” For India’s government, this is bad news: internationally, its credibility is now on the line. Withdrawing GSP status no big deal, but Donald Trump’s myopic act may affect pace of India-US ties US president Donald Trump’s Monday notification to the US Congress that his administration plans to “terminate” India’s (and Turkey’s) designation as a beneficiary of its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) — the largest and oldest US trade preference programme meant to give a fillip to the economies of primarily developing nations by allowing thousands of products to be imported duty free — is meant to be a warning shot to New Delhi that it must get serious about settling the trade differences. Ending of GSP, however, is not expected to hurt India too much even though New Delhi has been the top exporter to the US in 2017-18 under the programme with goods worth $5.6 billion Game of Thrones season 8 trailer reveals little of Tyrion Lannister Tyrion is also among the characters whose season 8 arc is almost entirely a mystery. When we last saw him, Tyrion was standing in the shadows, again with an inexplicable expression on his face — hurt? watchfulness? betrayal? — as he saw Jon enter Dany’s stateroom on the ship bearing them North. Before this, when the negotiations at the Dragonpit broke down, he persuaded Dany to let him speak to Cersei in private — and seemingly succeeded in bringing her over to their side. But at what cost? There is quite some conjecture over what deal, if any, did Tyrion strike with Cersei. Champions League: Ajax reinvent Total Football in Bernabeu to overwhelm Real Madrid in last-16 On a night of extraordinary football, Ajax Amsterdam’s ensemble of feather-thin youth dissected the kings of European football with superb precision in the 62nd minute as they overwhelmed a formless and featureless Real Madrid with barnstorming, reinvented Total Football. Noussair Mazraoui kept the ball in play with a slide near – and almost over – the touchline, Hakim Ziyech passed to Nicolás Tagliafico and after a touch from Donny van de Beek the ball meandered gently to Dusan Tadic, whose composure, execution and turn to score a superlative third goal were but a microcosm of his outstanding 90 minutes. Githa Hariharan speaks on ‘I Have Become The Tide’, Rohith Vemula, and politics of her writing Githa Hariharan’s latest novel I Have Become The Tide centres around the caste system. Almost three decades on since her first novel, and two decades on since she fought a landmark case in court, the writer spoke to Firstpost about the way her writing has evolved, the influence of Rohith Vemula’s death on her work and the politics of her writing. “The people in my novel, and what they live through, are fictitious. But they are very close to reality, past and present. I Have Become the Tide was written with Rohith Vemula, and all the Rohiths of India, in the same room. In fact, the novel was written with all the Kalburgis of India in the room as well,” she said in the interview.