The work that Raj and his colleagues did for the United Nations in the early days of the CDS, and published in 1976, helped shape the contours of what later came to be called the "Kerala model of development" - the co-existence of low per capita income and very high physical quality of life indicators like life expectancy and literacy rate.
Raj's collaboration with the United Nations in the early CDS era, documented in 1976, played a crucial role in shaping the "Kerala model of development" - a distinctive combination of low income levels and outstanding quality of life indicators such as life expectancy and literacy rates.