
            In the aftermath of USSR collapsing, India is left without any powerful allies while China continues to test its nuclear weapons and supply them to Pakistan. The year is 1995 and as the Chinese test their 43rd nuclear weapon. Scene changes to a board room meeting in the Prime Minister's Office where the bureaucrats are planning on how to criticize China for its actions when Ashwath Raina (John Abraham) proposes that India too test a nuclear weapon and become a nuclear state in his plan called nuclear peace. He is ridiculed and insulted by other board members and he walks out.The principle secy to the PM then half reads Raina's plan without even opening the floppy disc with all details and the attempt of testing the nuclear weapon in 1995 fails miserably with CIA spy satellites catching India 'Red Handed' which leads to India facing severe flak from USA. Raina is blamed for the failure and is dismissed from his office. Dejected, he moves his family to Mussoorie where he starts tuition for the aspirants of Indian Administrative Services. Its 1998 and its clear that Raina is still disturbed from the failure and his supportive wife Sushma (Anuja Sathe) now worried about the future asks him to look for a permanent job.Himanshu Shukla (Boman Irani), The Principle Secy to Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the new Prime Minister of India in 1998 takes office and is very serious about having a successful nuclear test done to put India on the nuclear map. He locates Ashwath Raina and sends him a letter offering a job in Delhi University and asking him to come for interview in a school in Dehradun. Upon reaching there Raina realizes that the job offer was just an alibi to keep the meeting a secret. It is here that Raina's initial plan is understood clearly and how it went wrong because in the hurry of nuclear test, no one paid any attention to the secrecy. His plan involves close knit operation of various Indian agencies like DRDO, ISRO, BARC, Armed forces and RAW.Raina is asked to lead a team of chosen scientist and engineers but his request for involving RAW is rejected outright. Amabalika Bandhyopadhyay (Diana Penty) is in charge of security of the team which now comprises of Dr. Wiraf Wadia (Aditya Hitkari) from BARC, Dr. Naresh Sinha (Yogendra Tikku) from DRDO, Puru Ranganathan (Ajay Shankar) from ISA (ISRO has been shown as ISA in the movie) and Army Major Prem Singh (Vikas Kumar). All 6 assume false identities as the 5 Pandavas and Krishna and head to Pokhran where they have made Pokhran fort as their base working as officers of Archaeological Survey of India.In the Pokhran range however all wear army uniforms so as to give a feel that its just a regular army operation. They are to use a pass code changed on a daily basis to enter the range. Puru Ranganathan is in charge of finding the blind spots - the time period when none of the Lacrosse spy satellites are looking over the range. It is decided that work on the shafts will be done only during the blind spots at night since day time the temperatures are high and there is a risk of sand storm affecting their work. Initially they have to drain out the water filled up in the shafts over the past 3 years. They put up a board as Water Service Cadres to hide their real intentions from the spy satellites.Meanwhile Sajjan, an ISI agent (Darshan Pandya) is working closely with CIA agent Daniel (Mark Bennington) in getting leads towards the sudden increase in action in the range suspecting that India is getting ready for a nuclear test. The work of repairing the shafts and wiring is going on a good pace with covering up of their actions by erasing the Tire tracks using special contraptions and camouflage coverings and parking the vehicles in the same position giving an idea to the spy satellites that all is as it is. The nuclear material code named as Stores, is transported to Pokhran on 28th April about a month before the scheduled date of tests so as to weaponize them. As Raina is about to break the news about their progress to Himanshu Shukla, he is shocked to hear from him to stop further work. The reason we gather is the threat to the PM office from their allies who threatened to withdraw the support and dissolve the Government over various issues (no one knows about the nuclear tests though except Pm and his close aides).Raina confronts Shukla about advancing the tests and completing them within the next 10 days much before the no confidence motion to be enacted in the Parliament, by saying they will have to work in both the day and night blind spots. Shukla disagrees and sends him away saying the conversation is over. A visibly dejected Raina comes to a Delhi School for his son's school admission and avoids his wife's questions over visiting his office in Delhi university where he is supposedly teaching (Raina is hiding his real job even with his family). He hastily sends his wife and son back to Mussoorie and sees a SMS on his phone from Shukla giving him the go ahead. With a great smile he returns to Pokhran and coaxes his team to finish off preparations double time to complete the tests in the next 10 days. His team members are against this as they would need to work during day risking high temperatures and sand storms that would threaten to blow their cover.Nevertheless Raina is very serious on getting the tests done soon and makes his team agree. They are now working during day and all goes smooth and they are back in the hut much before the spy satellites are back in the range but a short sand storm blows away the sand covered over the wire cables and blows away their camouflage covering. Upon discovering that they have only 15 minutes to go back and make things 'normal' before the Lacrosse satellites are back on Pokhran range, they pace up and are able to return back to the base with seconds to spare despite a jammed wheel threatening to expose their position.Daniel realizes the lapse from CIA satellite centre in USA when he notices that one army jeep is parked in the opposite direction suggesting that it had moved but there are no tracks visible. He notifies this to the main CIA centre but they need more evidence on this. Daniel travels to Pokhran fort and tries to gather information by sweet talking with Puru Ranganathan and Dr. Naresh Sinha. Dr. Sinha inadvertently gives away the real name of Ashwath Raina which Daniel is happy to get. Sajjan in the guise of a telephone lineman taps into Raina's call to his wife and comes to know that he is hiding his work even from his wife. He then conspires with Daniel into leaking this information to his wife by falsely creating a misunderstanding that Raina is in Pokhran on a honeymoon package with his wife. Sajjan bugs Raina's room in the guise of a waiter and is almost caught but escapes.In the now bugged room, Raina is having a talk Ambalika as his wife knocks on the door. Raina is shocked to see his wife there. Ambalika leaves them to be together and in the argument that ensues over the misunderstanding that Raina is cheating his wife by lying to her about his job and location gives away the secret of blind spot. Sushma walks away asking him not to follow her. He however lets the situation as it is and stays there to oversee the tests. Daniel informs the CIA main centre to plug the blind spot by assigning another Lacrosse satellite to cover Pokhran from 2000 hrs that night.In the control room Raina and Ambalika are trying to figure out hard from where the information leaked to his wife. Meanwhile the countdown to the blind spot is almost there and Raina advises his team to begin work. Just as they are about to being, an overload on the generator snaps out the power and everything is shut. By the time they repair it, Raina spots the satellite in the night sky and is shocked beyond belief. Although the satellite sees everything as normal, the team considers the power outage as a blessing in disguise. They connect dots and come to a conclusion that their cover is probably blown with his wife reaching Pokhran and addition of another satellite. Himanshu Shukla advised to call off the tests and send back the stores leaving no paper trail as now the time of blind spots is severely inadequate to carry out their work in secret.The team is having a few drinks when suddenly Raina has another idea up his sleeve. He travels to Delhi and again talks with Shukla to create mock movement of armed forces along the Line Of Control making it look like preparation of war with Pakistan believing that such a sudden thing would force the CIA to shift their attention from Pokhran to the LOC. The gamble pays off as Lacrosse satellites are moved away from Pokhran much against Daniel's wish. Daniel faces severe flak from his boss Stephen (Zachary Coffin) and is officially reassigned and asked to leave Pokhran immediately. This allows 8 hours of blind spots over the next 3 days in which the team now with renewed zeal finishes of their preparations and lowers the nuclear warheads in the shafts and proceeds to seal them. Meanwhile the informer to Sajjan gets arrested.On the test day, while having a meal with Daniel, Sajjan comes to realize that onions aren't available in the hotel and that all the onions have been sent to the army canteen. He tries to explain Daniel that all the onions have been used to pack the shafts. Daniel doesn't buy his onion absorbs radiation theory and asks him to stop the pursuit as he doesn't want to risk getting arrested now that Sajjan's informer has already been put behind bars. Sajjan on his own obtains Raina's phone with Vital information and hands it over to Daniel who in turn notifies CIA office in USA. They react with shock and disbelief when they come to know that India is ready to test more than 1 nuclear weapon anytime now. They quickly gather their data and are in the process of getting in touch with the POTUS to pressurize India to stop their tests.Meanwhile Sajjan and Daniel are arrested by Ambalika's team. Raina awaits final confirmation signed by the PM of India which Himanshu Shukla cleverly obtains on a coded draft while the PM is in a meeting with the American diplomat on the LOC issue. He immediately faxes the copy to the base in Pokhran where they begin their final countdown but have to wait further since wind direction is towards Pakistan and they don't want any risk of a leaking radiation to enter that country. The tense moment of wait intermingles with the tense moments of the CIA in USA who are trying their best to get in touch with the the POTUS. As the CIA chief opens the door to greet the POTUS, countdown reaches Zero time in Pokhran and India successfully tests 1 fusion and 2 fission bombs on the 11th of May 1998. Ambalika gives a look of victory to Daniel who had been ridiculing that POTUS already knows and that India will fail again. The team is elated and congratulating each other and shortly thereafter PM issues a statement about the successful tests. USA and the whole world is shocked to know that India carried out this operation with such precision and secrecy. CIA issues a statement that this was indeed a great failure of their intelligence.While India is celebrating its great success, it faces sanctions from the western world. on 13th May, two days after the initial tests, India tested two more fission bombs and joined the Nuclear club as declared itself as a full fledged Nuclear State. In the days to come, India earned the respect it deserved and continued to succeed and improve its relations with the nations world over. The movie ends with images from the original test as a mark of respect to the unsung heroes of the mission and honoring them by observing 11th May as National Technology day.
    

Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran


            
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