B.G. Verghese, veteran editor and intellectual, dead

B.G. Verghese, acclaimed editor, respected columnist and a leading intellectual, died this evening at his son's home in nearby Gurgaon, a family friend said.

Verghese was 87. He is survived by his wife Jamila and two sons.

Born in 1927 in Burma, now Myanmar, Verghese began his career as a journalist with the Times of India in 1949.

He rose to become the editor of the Hindustan Times and the Indian Express in a career spanning six decades during which he also was information adviser to prime minister Indira Gandhi during 1966-68.

He was removed as the Hindustan Times editor during the Emergency era of Indira Gandhi.

Verghese was information consultant to the defence minister (2001), a member of the National Security Advisory Board and of the Kargil Review Committee.

He was an authority on India's troubled northeast and water resources and was a member of several NGOs and educational institutions.

Verghese was a founder member of the Editors Guild of India and received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism in 1975. He was also on a fact finding mission on the Gujarat riots of 2002.

He is a author of of over a dozen books, the last one being a history of India as told through its postage stamps.

He was a visiting professor at the Centre for Policy Research. In his memoirs titled "First Draft" that he published in 2010, he wrote: "Age is an attitude, least of all a biological attribute."