General Bipin Rawat
जनरल बिपिन रावत1958-2021 · Armed Forces · Pauri, Pauri Garhwal
General Bipin Rawat of Pauri Garhwal rose through four decades of soldiering to become Chief of the Army Staff and then, in 2020, independent India's first Chief of Defence Staff, charged with uniting the three services. He died in a helicopter crash in December 2021.
He was born on 16 March 1958 in Pauri, into a family that had served the Garhwal hills' oldest profession: his father, Lieutenant General Laxman Singh Rawat, rose to deputy chief of the army. Commissioned into the 5/11 Gorkha Rifles from the IMA Dehradun, where he won the Sword of Honour, he soldiered along the Line of Actual Control, in the Kashmir valley and in the Northeast.
As Army Chief from the end of 2016 he oversaw a doctrinally aggressive period, including the response to Doklam, and on 1 January 2020 he took office as the first Chief of Defence Staff, tasked with theatre commands and the integration of the army, navy and air force.
On 8 December 2021 the Mi-17 helicopter carrying him crashed near Coonoor in the Nilgiris, killing him, his wife Madhulika and eleven others. He was cremated with full honours, mourned in his home hills above all; the Garhwal of soldiers had lost its highest-ranking son.