Obama Inauguration

As witnessed by “Manifest” an hour before the inauguration of then President-elect Barak Obama.

The Toppling of George Bush

Witnessed this morning near Memorial Bridge, after Barak Obama was officially sworn-in as 44th president of the United States.

Reminiscent of events in Bagdad, an enterprising local, marked the end of 8 years of Bush’s presidency this way.

The Toppling of George Bush

The Euro: the next Bizantine Currency?

Malta – Euros (Coins)

Originally uploaded by marfis75

970 years this is the length of time that Bizantine coins have been in circulation: from Anastasius I (491-518) to David Megas Comnenus (1459 to 1461).

By comparison, the US dollar is only 224 years old. The Japanese Yen, introduced by the Meiji government in 1872, is barely 137.
1/january/2009 meanwhile, marked the tenth anniversary of the Euro, the official currency of 16 out of 27 member states of the European Union (EU).

Read the whole story on Manifest Magazine N11

The Origins of the Epiphany

Sky of January…… Epiphany

Originally uploaded by Bia13

By Father Giuseppe Caruso for Manifest Magazine.

While Christmas is a holiday familiar to every westerner, the Epiphany, though also a Christian holiday, is less so.
Father Giuseppe Caruso of the “Ordine di San Agostino” reveals the origins of this equally important day for Christianity. (OSA). e insegno patrologia a Roma. all?Augustinianum.

On January 6 the Church of the East and West come together (notwithstanding their diverging calendars) to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, also known as Theophany.
Fanein is a greek verb which means “to appear” or “to become visible”. Therefore the festival celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the world (hence the term Epiphany), because he appears as God. The use of the second term, Theophany, is manifestation of God (theo in Greek).
Christmas on the other hand, dates back to Roman times. It is the Christianization of the holiday period then known as “Natalis solis invicti” (Birth of the undefeated sun). As in many pagan traditions “Natalis solis invicti” marked the winter solstice.
We know that in AD 274, Emperor Aureliano had been a big proponent of the holiday. Decades later in AD 336, Christians celebrated on that day the birth of who they thought was the true sun of justice, Christ the Lord.
Meanwhile the Epiphany appeared in Alexandria, Egypt where pagans celebrated the feast of the god of time Eon, on 5 and 6 January.

Read the rest of the article at

http://manifestmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/manifestn11.pdf

Manifest N11

Click on the image to download the pdf

In this issue:

• The Euro: the next Byzantine Currency?
• The Origins of the Epyphany by Father Giuseppe Caruso
• The Art of Selecting Talent by Thomas Mueller
• “Am I addicted to the Internet?” asks Sam Saleh
• Taking Micro-Blogging to the Next Level: An interview with Mike Langford

Starting-up a company in India

Leo S. Maveli, Founder CEO of Axio Biosolutions Pvt. Ltd in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India will be featured in the 15/January issue of Manifest Magazine. Here is an excerpt of the interview.

The Jama Masjid of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

How easy is it to start a company in India?

Post liberalization and opening of economy, starting a company in India has become much more easier. To give you some numbers, we registered our company and started our operations within just 15 days of filling first form and by pooling in few lacs of rupees. These figures could vary from state to state in India. We being at Gujarat, which is one of the most entrepreneur friendly state in India, had the advantage of being at the right place. However with growth of  entrepreneurial eco-systems like incubators and other infrastructure, starting a company from scratch is not difficult any more in India.

How easy is it to hire the right management team and employees?

We being a small startup, hasn’t really gone all out to recruit many. But the response we are getting from the prospective associates are encouraging. However in India, working for a startup hasn’t been looked upon as a feasible career option by experienced professionals. So though getting freshers seems to be easy, hiring experienced and skilled workforce still remains an issue to startups. We hope this situation would change once there are more success stories from startups, which could then be emulated.

What have been / are your greatest challenges?

As we operate in an emerging field like Medical Devices, we face very specific challenges related to getting licenses and other regulatory clearance from Government authorities. Unlike regulated markets like US and EU, India still does not have a clear regulatory pathway for medical devices. This creates a stumbling roadblock for startups as time, money and effort which could well be spent on product development is unnecessarily being spent on getting a clarity in terms of product classification and regulatory clearances.

This is a challenge specific to the industry we are operating in. Raising finances which is usually described as a major challenge in India, hasn’t been a challenge for us until now.

Leo S. Mavely – Founder

Leo, technically a graduate in applied biotech engineering from MDU, Haryana. After joining NirmaLabs ( a technology business incubator), he has been working towards building a world class medical product for the ‘affordable’ population in developing countries.

2009

Happy new year 2009