Rajnath Singh will brief the parliament tomorrow.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will brief both houses of the parliament on the chopper crash in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri Hills that claimed the lives of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Dr Madhulika Rawat, and eleven members of his staff. Mr Singh will speak in the Lok Sabha at 11:15 am and at noon in the upper house, sources say.
The Defence Minister had today tweeted about the "exceptional courage and diligence" of India's top military officer.
"Deeply anguished by the sudden demise of Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 other Armed Forces personnel in an extremely unfortunate helicopter accident today in Tamil Nadu. His untimely death is an irreparable loss to our Armed Forces and the country," he said.
Mr Singh visited General Rawat's home in Delhi earlier this evening and briefed the Prime Minister, who also met with top ministers who are members of the Cabinet Committee on Security.
Four crew members and ten passengers, including the CDS, were on board the Air Force's Mi-17V5 helicopter. The chopper crashed around 15 minutes after it took off this morning from an Air Force base in Sulur near Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore. It was heading to Wellington in Udhagamandalam, also known as Ooty, where a Defence Services Staff College is located. It crashed in Coonoor, a spot between Coimbatore and Sulur.
General Rawat, 63, was appointed as India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in late 2019.
General Rawat and his wife will be cremated on Friday in Delhi Cantonment. Their bodies are expected to arrive in the national capital in a military plane by tomorrow evening.