Speaking of changing relationships, one of the most interesting parts of your report, I thought, concerned the way unions have changed their stance vis-?-vis charters. It sounds like there’s been a real adjustment.
There’s definitely been a significant shift for the unions. There was a time, especially in the early 2000s, when there was just a blanket aversion to charter schools because there was this feeling that these schools were trying to weaken the power of teachers unions, and that they were not interested in helping to collaborate in any meaningful way. This is really starting to shift, and it’s true that this shift hasn’t really been reflected in the way the popular media frames the education reform conversations.
Today, I think the unions take an approach that they understand charter schools are not going away, that some charter schools are actually good, but there remains a great lack of oversight and regulation over the bad charter schools. It’s funny, because charter school advocates will claim that traditional public schools are bludgeoned with regulations, and meanwhile, unions sort of watch as charter schools have insufficient levels of oversight. So right now they’re trying to raise awareness for the completely unregulated schools, or for the schools whose regulations are totally insufficient, while trying to push for laws that ensure more transparency and accountability.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that the charter-union movement starts picking up steam. Is there any chance that Wall Street, which has been a massive supporter of charters, will abandon it because of their views on unions?
Yes, I think that’s definitely a possibility. That’s something that various union people said to me. Jesse Sharky, from the Chicago Teacher’s Union, said that right, there’s a lot of businesspeople and entrepreneurs who are very interested in the charter school sector, and if that sector became more heavily unionized, it’s not so clear that suddenly it would be such an interesting or intriguing investment for them to make.
Hopefully that’s not the case, but it’s definitely fair to wonder how the political support will fare, especially since many political backers like charter systems because they’re union-free. So it’s not exactly clear how, if at all, they’re going to change their support if a greater proportion of charter schools unionize.
"For all these years, we could not think of having a reserve like other countries have due to the impending sanctions. But now we can think of working to build a reserve of nuclear fuel.
"We are mostly depending on the uranium from Australia. Once we start getting it, we can start building the reserve. Uranium from Kazakhstan will largely meet the current demand. It is a rare commodity, so one should keep piling it whenever it is available at a cheaper rate in the international market," the official added.
Under the Indo-US nuclear deal, the latter is to support India?s initiative for having a nuclear pool. "The United States will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors," the agreement states.
Indian reactors had been "under-performing" as they did not get enough fuel from the outside world prior to the historic Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement due to sanctions. However, since its inception, India has started importing uranium from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and France.
In a major milestone, India this year registered a record production of over 1,252 MT of uranium, manufacturing close to double the annual fuel requirement of atomic reactors in the country. The production has far exceeded the country's annual fuel requirement of 650 MT for the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which means the country has surplus nuclear fuel that will last several months.
Every 700 MW of reactor needs 125 MT of uranium every year. However, with the rising number of power reactors in the country, the demand is expected to rise. In the near future, two nuclear reactors of 700 MW each in Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) and Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) are coming up. Four atomic reactors of 700 MW each are also coming up at the Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana (GHAVP).
Fuel for Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu and Jaitapur in Maharashtra, coming up in collaboration with Russia and France respectively, will be made available by the foreign players.
My father narrated these characters to me about a decade ago and I found them very interesting. Initially, we didn't have the full story, we only had some characters like Sivagami (the character you see at the beginning of the film) and Katappa the bodyguard, in the last scene. About three years ago, we started putting these characters together to form the story.
Salman Khan praised the film and admitted that its box office gross scared him. Has the film proved that a truly all-India blockbuster is possible outside of Bollywood?