Palliative care involves improving quality of life of people with life-limiting or disabling diseases, by treating pain and other symptoms and by providing emotional, social and spiritual support.

Pallium India was founded in 2003. The organization works with local organizations, supporting them to start palliative care facilities, to expand facilities where they exist and to start rehabilitation services for families of patients afflicted by cancer. It also undertakes activities at the national level to ensure availability of opioids. Education and quality assurance in palliative care are other major goals of the organization. Pallium India has the approval of Government of India for working with organizations abroad and for receiving donations. The organization’s goal is to “catalyze the development of effective pain relief and quality palliative care services across India through delivery of services, education, research, advocacy and information.”

Rajagopal is also the director of Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences the flagship of Pallium India. He is one of the founders of Pain and Palliative Care Society in Calicut, which became a World Health Organization demonstration project and grew to the present Institute of Palliative Medicine with a network of over 100 palliative care centers in the state of Kerala, as well as several outside the state. This initiative resulted in palliative care reaching about 40 percent of the needy in Kerala compared to the national average of less than 1 percent. He is based at Pallium India headquarters in Trivandrum.