Recently, the decision of Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) to come out with an advertisement for lateral entry to joint secretary positions in Government of India has generated a lot of debate and controversy. However, the idea of lateral entry into civil service is not entirely new in India. In the past, domain experts have been brought in from outside the services to head various departments and organizations be it technocrats like V. Krishnamurthy, R.V. Shahi and Nandan Nilekeni, …