General Bipin Rawat Conferred with Padma Vibhushan Posthumously at Rashtrapati Bhavan

On Monday India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, who died in a helicopter crash in December last year was conferred with Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian award. He was appointed as the first CDS on 30 December 2021 and assumed office on 1 January 2020.

His daughters Kritika Rawat and Tarini Rawat accepted the award from President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

On December 8, 2021, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat along with 11 others lost their lives in a chopper crash in Coonoor in Tamil Nadu.

The chopper crashed shortly after it took off on morning December 8 from an Air Force base in Sulur near Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore.

The Helicopter crash in which Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 13 others were killed was caused by bad weather leading to a phenomenon called Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT).