Have you seen the Robert Bergman show, a friend enthusiastically asked me about the special exhibition of the photographer&rsquo;s portraits at DC&rsquo;s National Gallery of Art. I hadn&rsquo;t, because I no longer travel to that part of the world as frequently. But that did not stop me from seeing it, as it were. I simply logged on to the museum website, where 13 of his works were on display. In that instant, I realised, I had slowly become an armchair art-viewer. I&rsquo;d begun to see and read about global art online, instead of directly.

A guide to art online

Business Standard

TOP SEED Boris Gelfand edged Ruslan Ponomariov to take the World Cup and a place in the next Candidates. Gelfand held his nerve after the four normal games were drawn without much excitement. Gelfand won the second rapid tiebreaker and lost the fourth. Then, he won the second blitz, lost the third and finally won the fourth and last blitz game.

Chess #618

Artificial insemination is the unlikely topic of Radhika Jha&rsquo;s new novel. Animals are a good subject.

Once upon a cow

Well, we&rsquo;ve hit what Americans call &ldquo;the holiday season&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s a time for conviviality and cheer as people bid good riddance to what they almost invariably feel was the worst year of their lives and trustingly welcome what they almost invariably think is going to be a better year. (This is what literary critics call &ldquo;dramatic irony&rdquo;, but let us not dwell on sorrowful things.

Turn over a new leaf

Nilanjana S Roy picks the titles to look out for in the coming year.

The big books of 2010

Economist, politician, teacher and peer Meghnad Desai brought a half-century of reading and thinking to bear on his latest work on India.

From down up

One of the more distressing news items of the past fortnight was the news that Thomas Hoving had died. Hoving was the revolutionary director of the world-famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and ruled that roost for a decade straddling the 1960s and 1970s.

Hoping for a Hoving

They write, but they also read furiously and eclectically &mdash; and here they pick their 2009 favourites.

Authors' recommendations

Research findings are a source of much merriment for me and some of my online friends, especially when scientists blithely overturn the &ldquo;important findings&rdquo; they had announced just a few days earlier: telling us, for example, that red wine is really excellent for the heart (because a group of mice under observation in the lab clocked up extra miles on their little cross-trainers after having a few glasses), and then subsequently going oh no, wait a minute, it turns out that red wine leads directly to heart attacks (those mice weren&rsquo;t cycling fast because of increased energy levels, they were merely in their death throes and reflexive limb action was occurring).

Bean there, done that

The super-premium beer is banking on UB for its India debut, but the late entry may make the going tough.

Heineken's last frontier

This year's Indian advertising rage will soon get audiences overseas to sit up and take notice.

Vodafone set to take Zoozoos overseas

Imagine walking into a washroom at one of the multiplexes and being welcomed with a message that terms you &ldquo;the Fourth Idiot&rdquo;. Don&rsquo;t feel offended as you are just watching the promotion of 3Idiots, an Aamir Kan-starrer to be released this Friday.

3Idiots makes smart moves on marketing

I wish I could surgically separate those two conjoined words, up and to. You see, &lsquo;upto&rsquo; is 100 per cent off. It&rsquo;s plain wrong. The fact that the two words are written as one in 99 per cent of Indian advertisements, doesn&rsquo;t make it right.

Upto 100% off

A peak into gizmos you can safely invest in and carry over to the next year without feeling the itch to upgrade.

Be gadget wise for 2010

Tata aims to create disruption in the water purifier market with the low-priced Swach.

Nano filters down

Volkswagen, Europe&rsquo;s largest car maker, has bought 19.9 per cent stake in Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan&rsquo;s third largest carmaker, for $2.5 billion. Of course, Suzuki&rsquo;s strength is in small cars and Volkswagen&rsquo;s stated mission is to become the world&rsquo;s largest car company, ahead of Toyota and General Motors. And that&rsquo;s not possible unless you have a bevy of small cars in your portfolio. A full takeover would have given Volkswagen annual volumes of 4.4 million cars &mdash; way ahead of Toyota&rsquo;s 3.5 million. At the moment, Volkswagen-Suzuki is merely an alliance.

Volkswagen, Suzuki: Joining forces

Bajaj Auto will not sit on the fence anymore. Reduced to the fringes in the scooter market, the company would often tell investors, analysts and inquisitive journalists that a brand new strategy is in the works. But it stunned the world recently when it announced that it will exit the market. The Kristal, its last scooter, will not be made after March next year.

Bajaj Auto: Yesterday no more

BUSINESS OBJECTS XI: THE COMPLETE REFERENCE
Author: Cindi Howson
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 3,996
ISBN: 0072262656.
CONCEPT OF THE CORPORATION
Author: Peter F Drucker
Publisher: Transaction Pub
Price: Rs 1,397
ISBN:1560006250.
GROWING GREAT EMPLOYEES
Author: Erica Anderson
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 796
ISBN:1591841909.
GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Author: Jay Conrad Levinson 
Publisher: Lightning Source 
Price: Rs 746
ISBN:1933596074.
BUSINESS STRIPPED BARE&nbsp;
Author: Richard Branson
Publisher: Virgin Books
Price: Rs 449
ISBN: 9780753515020.
BILLION DOLLAR LESSONS
Authors: Paul B Carroll and Chunka Mui 
Publisher: Penguin 
Price: Rs 495
ISBN: 9781591842194.
THE PARTNERSHIP: THE MAKING OF GOLDMAN
Author: Charles D Ellis
Publisher: Allen Lane 
Price: Rs 995
ISBN: 9781846141027.
HOW TOYOTA BECAME #1
Author: David Magee
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 499
ISBN: 9781591842293.
THE RURAL MARKETING BOOK
Authors: Pradeep Kashyap

The top 10 business bestsellers

Consumers are no longer ready to sacrifice nutrition to taste. In fact, they are looking for options that are both healthier and tastier. Several brands have been launched recently to tap this growing demand, for instance, Satva, Sarda and Avesta Good Earth.

KIT: Changing eating habits in India

    This 100-year-old brand for which India is the second-largest market after Brazil has now a mausambi (sweet lime) flavour. Identify it.

The Strategist Quiz (#128)

    The B-school that bears this person&rsquo;s name recruits about a third of its students from outside the business world. He helped inspire the megachurch movement and acted as an informal adviser to the Girl Scout movement in the US. Identify him.

Answers to last week&#39s quiz (#127)

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