Firstpost Editor's Picks: Rafale row, filmmakers' V-Day 'love letters' and Shannon Gabriel's sledging; today's must-read stories

The Rafale conundrum: Who induced PMO to accept extortionist terms and how did France get such a sweet deal? Not all arms deals are created equal. Most go through the bureaucratic grind and long testing trials over years before the competing products are shortlisted, which is when corruption usually occurs in terms of changing the rank order to favour this or that supplier/country. It is facilitated by middle-men servicing political leaders, bureaucrats and even uniformed personnel in the decision-making loop and their tendency to pelf and personal profit via commissions and considerations in kind. On Valentine’s Day, filmmakers' 'love letters' to each other — from Wes Anderson on Ray to Del Toro on Hitchcock This Valentine’s Day, let’s celebrate love differently. Not with a list of films about love. Not with a list of great love scenes. Not with a list of great love stories between stars. So what, then? Oftentimes, when a director achieves something great, he/she inspires envy, but sometimes, he/she also inspires the purest kind of love from a fellow filmmaker, and the appreciation feels almost like a love letter. Shannon Gabriel's sledging episode shows cultural misunderstandings no excuse for inappropriate behaviour We don’t know exactly what Shannon Gabriel said, but it is not difficult to guess. Going by Joe Root’s answer, there must have been some form of homophobic slur made towards the England captain. As we don’t know exactly what Gabriel said, it is impossible to comment sensibly on the severity of the punishment, but the fact that he was charged at all is interesting. **Amit Shah must end Karnataka's botched Operation Lotus, after HD Kumaraswamy's 'tape' trap of BS Yeddyurappa** This has brought to nought months of plotting by BS Yeddyurappa to destabilise the government by exploiting the dogfights within Congress and JD(S) and between both the parties. The failure of BJP’s so-called Operation Lotus is evident from the new party position in the Assembly, following the U-turn by rebels who have been staying in a Mumbai hotel for a month. Besides, one of the two Independents who had withdrawn support for the coalition too is back in its fold. **A year after PNB fraud: Lessons learnt from Nirav Modi episode, but some questions still elude answers** From day one, the PNB should have been the trigger to overhaul the manner in which risk management systems function within the banking system. The problem here was that the system failed to function with respect to basic checks and balances. In one of the interviews, former RBI deputy governor and PNB chairman KC Chakrabarty told Firstpost that Indian banks have zero-risk management capacities. The RBI shouldn’t treat this as a one-off case and should start working on overhauling the risk management framework for Indian banks.