This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Reports of the demise of the U.S. dollar may be premature. But when some of the world’s most powerful investors are warning of the currency’s decline, investors take notice. More on this story here.

There are many cynics out there that critique and question the future of sustainable products and businesses. It’s easy to side with them, mostly because it’s difficult to understand what comprises a “sustainable” product which in turn creates a domino chain of skepticism about achievability. The industry is in self-defining mode and most of us lack the degrees in chemistry, biology, natural sciences or any other course of study that might support our inclination to trust what marketers tell us is “safe” and what is not. More on this story here.

Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, has grown quickly in recent decades - at the expense of its estuaries, environmentalist advocates say. More on this story here.

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Frida Pinto and Rubina Ali from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” greet each other at the Governor’s Ball following the 81st Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

And the Oscar goes to…..Slumdog Millionaire!

Every so often a wonderful movie about India wins a series of Oscars promising to finally put the face of this massive culture on the map. Gandhi, A Passage to India, Slumdog Millionaire.  But after the initial euphoria, the world eventually goes back to life as they know it. This time, after sweeping the Oscars with eight awards, India’s slumdogs are headed back to the slums.

The movie has reached massive acclaim in a very short span of time. Americans love it as it offers the romance of a rags- to-riches story artfully crafted by the creative hand of Danny Boyle, a proven talent in film-making. Indians on the other hand have had mixed responses about what the movie portrayed and the fact that its producers have exploited those who live in abject poverty.

So the question is did India actually win? Or was it simply a convenient subject for Hollywood?

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While Slumdog Millionaire will likely make quite a showing at the Oscars, actual dogs in Mumbai can now breathe a bit easier.

After pressure from PETA and frequent supporter Pamela Anderson, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that dogs must be sick, injured, or dangerous in order to be put down — much like the guidelines many shelters in the United States follow.

Anderson was instrumental in pushing for the new regulation. In a letter to the Mumbai municipal commissioner, she asked that the city consider a spay and neuter program to decrease the nuisance stray dog population instead of their current euthanasia routine.

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Terrorist attacks occur almost daily in larger and smaller numbers impacting civilians all over the world (Terrorism Research Center) however it is the large scale attacks in major global financial centers that leave the world reeling in shock.  An attack on a town in Afghanistan, Gujarat or Dagestan is quickly forgotten as people resume their daily lives the next day.  But an attack on New York or London destabilizes the country’s entire economic machine for several days, leaving its citizens and those elsewhere in the world fearful and helpless. When the major financial center is Mumbai, the nerve center of an economy that is growing at 9% per annum, the terrorist’s motive is greater. Perhaps because economic growth in a country with which a terrorist can ethnically identify, is a telling sign that the threads of ‘evil’ have become deeply ingrained within his own people.

BBC released a documentary in 2005 entitled “The Power of Nightmares.” It outlines the history of the Neo-Conservative movement in America and interestingly enough it shows how Al-Qaeda and the Neo-Conservatives were rooted in the same ideology: that the economic prosperity of the West represented a decline of social values. For the Neo-Cons this spurred a desire to create state terror in the guise of war.  For Al-Qaeda it spurred a desire to declare war in the guise of terror.

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Though on the outset, the two events have nothing in common (save for the fact that the Mumbai attacks led to the cancellation of the Live Earth event) and that climate change and terrorism are two diffrent challenges faced by our civilization today, the cause and consequences of the two are in some way pretty much the same. And in order to ensure a peaceful world, it is important that both these challenges are tackled - the earlier the better.

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Over 150 people have been killed in a Mumbai terror scene that eerily resembles the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. The terror scene has been unfolding in Mumbai since late Wednesday night (November 25th) and has carried on beyond 48 hours. Although a group known as the Deccan Mujahideen has claimed responsibility, there is speculation that that the series of coordinated attacks is part of a larger international conspiracy. One of the terrorists that was arrested has confirmed that the attack was planned more than 6 months ago and that more than 40 terrorists came to India - 29 of them were from Pakistan and the others were from Bangladesh.

154 dead, 327 injured; Indian commandos and hotel staff from the Taj and Oberoi hotel are looked upon as heroes.

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According to SustainLane who just released their 2008 Sustainable City rankings, city traits that are already set in stone like geography and layout play a huge role. Take the greenest cities in America: Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Four out of the five them are situated on the coast and were built before suburbia existed.

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