IAS Deepa Agrawal will now be Deepa Ranjan; List of a select IAS officers who changed their names

THE government last week permitted Deepa Agrawal, a 2013 batch UP cadre IAS, to change her name from Deepa Agrawal to Deepa Ranjan. “She will accordingly be recognized as Smt. Deepa Ranjan for all official purposes”, an order dated November 17, said. Originally belonging to Bihar, 29-year-old Deepa is a…

graduate in geography before getting into IAS. Two years ago, the changing of one’s name among IAS officers became a routine affair though there have not been too many instances during the last two years.

For example, in November 2014, the government allowed two IAS officers to change their names — Tamil Nadu cadre IAS Dr S Prabakharan to Dr S Prabhakar and 1988 batch Karnataka cadre IAS Basavaraju to Dr B Basavaraaju. In fact, Basavaraaju, an MSc in agriculture, was MD of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).

Here are three other officers who were permitted to change their names during the year 2014. 

a) 2010 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS Dr KS Palanisami was allowed to change his name to Dr KS Palanisamy.

b) The government permitted 1983 batch West Bengal cadre IAS Bhaskar Chandra Khulbe to drop his middle name, "Chandra". 

c) The government also permitted a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer’s name from F Innocent Divya to J Innocent Divya.

In none of these official orders, however, it’s not mentioned why the officer had to change the name. In Bollywood, the change of names by celebrities are very common. For example, ‘Tragedy King’ of Hindi cinema Dilip Kumar changed his name from Muhammad Yusuf Khan only after entering Bollywood. Sunny Deol's real name is Ajay Singh Deol, and Katrina Kaif’s name was Kate Turquotte before she started acting in Hindi movies. No one knows who is Rajiv Bhatia, but everyone knows Akshay Kumar!