Poverty and health were the areas of my lifetime work and focus. I had started publishing my experiences in this area. With Covid-19 taking a centre stage throughout the past year, I did not get into my area of interest.
Recognising that prevention of Covid-19 is the primary strategy to handle the disease, the focus of responsibility falls on each one to take steps to avoid the risk of contracting the disease. Should any important information on Covid-19 become available, I will share through these pages. Otherwise, I will begin focusing on lessons I learnt in reducing poverty and its impact on health.
God blessed me by enabling me to spend twenty-seven out of thirty-five years of my active service being associated one way or the other with reducing poverty through the Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs popularly known as RUHSA of Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
In the year 2000, as part of the silver jubilee celebration of RUHSA and based on taking a sabbatical break, I was able to write and publish a book on RUHSA, under the title, ‘Sustainable Health and Development: RUHSA’s experiences.’ It is out of print with only PDF copies being available.
So even as I move away from Covid-19, I wanted to use this opportunity to make my book on Covid-19 available for free download on two days of May 31st and 1st of June. The link to the book is given below.
About two years ago, I published my next book entitled, ‘Businessmen for the Poor: Reducing poverty by creating small businessmen and businesswomen.’ I am in the process of editing this book to bring out the second edition, focusing much more on the strategies to reduce poverty with more data being thrown in. The draft title is ‘Pathways to reduce poverty.’
There is more to poverty reduction than just the social dimension. Its economic dimension is also significant. While I am not an economist, I have learnt that the process of poverty reduction is closely related to development economics.
There are simple online courses that teach the basic principles of development economics. As I started learning these concepts it was clear how some of these were observed in my work. That has motivated me to look at micro-level principles of development economics. With God’s help, I am toying with the idea of bringing out the next book based on our experiences in the area of development economics.
So even as I move into poverty reduction in my blogging, I thought it appropriate to make available my E-book on ‘Businessmen for the Poor’ as well, as a free book to those who are interested in owning a free copy of my book. The link is available below.
I have a third book on biography. Being a graduate of CMC Vellore, I read about the life history of the ancestors of Dr Ida Sophia Scudder. Her grandfather, Dr John Scudder was the first fully trained doctor who went to any country to serve. His life is a story of sacrifice. Those who would be interested in having this book as well may get a free book, with the link given below.
I hope you will find the topic of poverty reduction interesting and useful for a country like India or even some of the states in particular or even any other country of the world. I would value your downloading and sharing this with your friends, relatives and other professional contacts as well as by posting through your own social media pages.
Rajaratnam Abel
Links to my books
1.Book Businessmen for the Poor
Global eBook Businessmen for the Poor http://tiny.cc/f801tz
Indian eBook Businessmen for the Poor http://tiny.cc/k901tz
2.Book COVID-19
Global eBook COVID-19 http://tiny.cc/gb01tz
Indian eBook COVID-19 http://tiny.cc/bb01tz
3.Book Dr John Scudder
Global eBook Dr John Scudder http://tiny.cc/ob01tz
Indian eBook Dr John Scudder http://tiny.cc/wb01tz
Rajaratnam Abel 