Firstpost Editor's Picks: Pakistan's blackmail, phenomenon called Mulayam, and Muzaffarpur case; today's must-read stories

UNSC snub, FATF warning are positive signs, but tackling Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail will require kinetic actionIs diplomatic pressure, snub at the United Nations or even choking of financing networks by global watchdogs enough to change the behaviour of a dysfunctional nation that uses nuclear blackmail to carry out jihad and asymmetric warfare? Can Pakistan, which has shown itself in the past to be quite shameless and unaffected by global opprobrium over its use of terror as a foreign policy tool, understand any other action except kinetic?Muzaffarpur shelter home case: 5 rape survivors, 2 other minors go missing from child care institution in Patna districtThe matter came to the fore during the counting of the inmates of the shelter home. Barh assistant superintendent of police Lipi Singh immediately rushed to the spot and inquired about the incident. Later on, Patna district magistrate Kumar Ravi and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Garima Malik visited the institution.A phenomenon called Mulayam: In praising BJP, SP patriarch fights last battle to save his legacyGoing away silently was never in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s blue book for political survival. In his brief speech, he showered encomiums on Prime Minister Narendra Modi: the very personification of the “evil” forces that he claimed to have fought all his life. Not just that, he said he wished to see Modi return as prime minister. The import of what he said was evident instantly in the “what-did-he-just-say” look on the face of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi seated right next to Yadav.Oscars 2019: How The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos became a master of dark, absurdist comediesTurning 18th century Kensington Palace into a psychological and political battlefield, The Favourite dramatises the triangular struggle for dominance between the petulant and needy Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and her two court favourites — childhood best friend Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Sarah's ambitious younger cousin, Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) — sparring and scheming to win her affection.GST collections: Statistics belie potential but Narendra Modi govt's tax reform is still a work in progressGST is still a work in progress. Indeed it would remain for a few more years given its profound and near all-encompassing scope. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has hit the nail on the head in his neat analysis of who was the villain of the piece: he said it was the services sector. Services contribute 54 percent of the GDP, yet GST has been about manufacturing and trading substantially, bemoaned Jaitley.