Verghese started his journalistic career in
The Times of India. He was information adviser to Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi in 1966-69, and wrote her speeches. Subsequently, he joined
Hindustan Times as editor, but lost his post for criticising Indira Gandhi during
the Emergency. His integrity in those years earned him immense respect, and he was awarded the
Ramon Magsaysay award that year. Immediately afterwards, he contested
Lok Sabha elections in 1977 from
Mavelikkara in
Kerala but lost. Verghese was also a member of the
Kargil Review Committee following the
Kargil War. He was also a member of the
National Security Council Advisory Board. A crusader for civil rights, Verghese has long worked on problems of development. He was also on the
Editors Guild of India Fact Finding Mission after the
Gujarat riots, 2002. He wrote extensively on developmental issues.
Waters of hope (1990) and
Winning the Future (1994) discuss managing the
Himalayan watershed.
Design for tomorrow (1965), ''India's North East resurgent
and Reorienting India: Rage, reconciliation and security
(2008) are other books with a progressive theme. He also authored Warrior of the Fourth Estate
(2005), an acclaimed biography of Ramnath Goenka, owner of the Indian Express. In October 2010, he published his autobiography First Draft: Witness to Making of Modern India'', which discusses the steady degradation of democratic processes during the tenures of Indira Gandhi and her son
Rajiv. ==References==