'Irada': Good intention poorly executed

If "Udta Punjab" unearthed the can of drugs in Punjab -- India's wheat bowl -- then "Irada" throws light on the cause of cancer there. Fictionalised, dramatised and mounted as a semi-documentary, Director Aparnaa Singh's attempt to showcase this issue is a remarkable feat. The plot revolves around Parabjit Walia an ex-army officer and an inspirational writer, who loses his daughter Riya to lung carcinoma. He chances upon a news where Maya Singh a journalist inks the face of the industrialist and philanthropist Paddy Sharma at a Press Conference, after her activist boyfriend Anirudh Dutt goes missing. On delving further into Maya's action he realises there is some truth behind her claims. Meanwhile, an accidental blast destroys Paddy's factory that indulges in reverse boring. Driven by his loss, he instructs Ramandeep Braitch, the Chief Minister to close the investigation of his factory blast at the earliest, so that he may claim the insurance. Thinking that she has a puppet in Arjun Mishra the investigating officer from the National Investigating Agency (NIA), she hands over the case to him. But how their plans back fire forms the crux of the tale.