Written From The Elbow

Recent gyrations in the price of oil mask longer-term shifts, driven by innovation and fresh ideas, that are altering the very structure, geographies and politics of the energy industry. The plunging prices of oil over the last half of 2014 have dramatically altered the global energy landscape. The US' successes over the last three years in tapping its (environmentally controversial and finite) resources of shale oil have  repositioned it from an importer to a potential exporter of oil . This unexpected excess coupled with reduced demand has rebalanced the supply and demand equations for carbon-based energy supplies thereby  driving down the price of oil by almost 50%  by the end of 2014. This has had cascading impacts on sectors such as  government subsidies , electricity production,  aviation , transportation and the  consumer's willingness to splurge their saved gas money on more Christmas gifts . These recent gyrations in the prices of oil mark signifi...

Cyber warfare presents a new landscape of rapidly shifting allegiances, and battles being fought by anonymous warriors, sometimes within a country's own boundaries. Addressing this problem will require swifter, more innovative, and far more nimble forms of diplomacy that have yet to be tested. More than  40% of the world's populace now have internet connections , with the number of users slated to reach three billion by the end of this year. If you're reading this, you're one of them. Over the past year, many of us users have become aware of the extent of cyber snooping and the lack of privacy on the internet. Revelations by  WikiLeaks  and  Edward Snowden , and  most recently by Vodafone , starkly describe the pervasive extent of cyber spying. Some of us have even been the victims of cyber crime, in the form of fraudulent credit card transactions, hacked email accounts, and stolen identities. The internet security company  McAffee approximates such crim...

After five gruelling weeks, Friday's vote count marked a tremendous victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies, under the leadership of its controversial Prime Minister in waiting, Narendra Modi. With almost all of the record-setting 550 million votes counted, the Country's once-dominant Congress Party , that has hobbled with its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) allies through the past five years, has been severely punished. This was a hard fought and fair battle, and Mr. Modi and the BJP deserve their victory. The BJP's strong showing in terms of seats won in India's 543 seat Lok Sabha (parliament), gives it an absolute legislative majority. When its NDA allies are included in the count, it has an even stronger mandate to make change. Even BJP-friendly psephologists failed to gauge the wide margin of the final tally. As the BJP prepares to take the reigns of government, they should do so with thought and caut...

No amount of litigation, wealth, prayer, or political effort is going to make it rain. We have to stop pretending that we don't have a water problem and start paying the true cost of what we use. Photo credit: the World Bank Group As  California struggles with its worst drought in its history , I'm stunned at how little it seems to matter in terms of people changing their habits and plans. For a state so populous, and so reliant on such limited supplies of ground and river water to quench the thirst of its farmers, residents and businesses, sweet little was done till recently to implement conservation measures. Housing continues to sprawl, farmlands continue to be paved, and even more cars get even bigger. I don't mean to pick on California though. Over 90% of Texas is currently a dust bowl of denial with a far bigger problem than California has on its hands, and its God-fearing, finger-pointing, creationist politicians have their climate-change denying heads buried in the...

There is only shame when one builds infrastructure that benefits only a few on the backs of the many. Globally, larger and larger shares of public infrastructure spending are being unjustly dedicated to roads built solely to move cars. To read the full article, click here .

A fire started late in the morning on Thursday, a few minutes away from our family home in Colaba and Cuffe Parade area. Like most of Mumbai, apartments for the middle class and “up”, jostle for space with swathes of slums. In the picture below, the fine-grained texture of the nearby slums is quite visible beside the apartment buildings in their sea of trees. The few mainstream media outlets that did bother to cover this story, made passing mention of just one person dying and got the location and name of the slum wrong, placing it several hours north of where it actually is. While the haves revel in their ostentatious displays of wealth, and the Canada Pension Plan’s decision to find higher returns is celebrated, there is little space in what is the “new India” to acknowledge the silent majority in this city, let alone grieve for their loss. Read more:  http://forbesindia.com/blog/economy-policy/a-fire-started-people-died-and-it-didnt-seem-to-matter-mumbai/

In the first quarter of 2013, approximately 40% of Detroit’s street lights did not work. The City cannot afford to repair or keep the lights on any more… with up to twenty city neighborhoods that were less than fifteen-per-cent occupied. Read more:  http://forbesindia.com/blog/author/tanzeel-merchant/#ixzz2hZeQPKOz