Dr. M R Rajagopal is the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Policy and Training on Access to Pain Relief at Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS) and the founder-chairman of “Pallium India”, a trust founded to improve access to palliative care in India. He has worked since 1995 with Government of India, to persuade the acceptance of Palliative Medicine as an independent specialty, to develop the National Program for Palliative Care (NPPC) of Government of India and to amend and to simplify the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of India, thus removing regulatory barriers to access to pain relief. He is member of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India, a life time advisor to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) and is the vice chairman of Asia Pacific Hospice Network (APHN). He is a member of the International Experts’ Committee of the WHO Collaborating Center at Madison-Wisconsin.