RIP Gen Bipin Rawat: Doklam, surgical strikes to India's first CDS

• Blunt and outspoken, a fighter known to challenge the status quo. The one who supervised two surgical strikes. General Bipin Rawat was killed in a chopper crash on Wednesday. Here’s how he rose through the ranks to become India’s first Chief of Defence Staff. Son of a 3-star General, Bipin Rawat was commissioned into the 5/11 Gorkha rifles in December 1978. During his four decades in service, he held many positions including Army Chief, GOC-C Southern Command, Division Commander in Kashmir. The NDA govt superseded two top generals to appoint him Army Chief in 2016. In 2019, General Rawat took over as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). General Rawat had been part of the planning and execution of major ops over the past few years. He was Army Chief when India struck a JeM terror training camp in Pakistan's Balakot in 2019. General Rawat was Vice Chief of Army Staff during the 2016 surgical strike after the URI attack. The General also supervised a cross-border counter-insurgency operation in Myanmar in 2015. In February 2015, General Rawat had survived a cheetah crash in Dimapur; he was then a Lieutenant General.