New Concept Information Systems, India

21/05/2026

This World Day for Cultural Diversity, we asked our colleagues: what small tradition or cherished cultural memory instantly reminds you of home? Their stories celebrate the little threads that connect us to our roots.

15/05/2026

Children flourish when nurtured within networks of collective care.

28/04/2026

Women of the Spice Hills Who Enriched Empires

Continuing our 2026 desk calendar series, Earth’s Daughters: Women Who Farm the World, this month’s post takes us to Kerala’s spice hills—where history still lingers in the air.

Kerala’s deep roots as the heart of the ancient spice trade—and their quiet continuity in the land and its people—come into focus this month. As empires rose and fell across the Fertile Crescent, the Levant and Rome, Kerala’s misty hills drew them in with the scent of spice. Merchants from Rome, Arabia and Babylon sailed to Muziris where ships gathered at the mouth of the Periyar for pepper and profit. By 77 AD, Pliny the Elder noted in Naturalis Historia that “India was draining Rome of fifty million sesterces (coins) a year.”

Today, in the Western Ghats, that story lives on. Women move through green plantations, their hands carrying the scent of oils older than memory. In Idukki and Wayanad, families tend the vines together with women playing a central role in harvesting the jade-green pods and keeping rhythm with the land. Cardamom, turmeric, clove and pepper continue to season food, heal bodies, and shape everyday life.

This month’s illustration draws inspiration from Keraleeya Chumarchithram (Kerala temple murals), showing spices being gathered and transported towards the ancient port of Muziris. These murals traditionally use panchavarana—five natural colours: red, yellow, green, black and white.

Though floods swallowed old harbours and time erased them from memory, the spirit never faded. It lives on in the soil and in the hands that continue to tend these hills. Spices travelled across oceans, but their enduring story is rooted here—in the work and knowledge that sustain them, season after season.

Read more...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/april-2026-women-spice-hills-who-enriched-empires-newconceptinfo-blqrc

26/04/2026

This April our calendar celebrates the farmers of Kerala.

25/04/2026

Together, we can move closer to a malaria-free future.

With stronger initiatives, new tools and technologies, and sustained collective action, ending malaria is no longer out of reach.

We can and we must!

07/04/2026

On World Health Day 2026, let's unite for a future where science drives global health solutions. From human health to animal welfare and environmental protection, scientific collaboration is the key to a healthier tomorrow.

30/03/2026

Food waste is one of the major drivers for climate change. It accounts for up to 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This International Day of Zero Waste, let's rethink our habits and contribute to a more sustainable living by reducing food waste.

08/03/2026

This International Women's Day we spotlight women's enduring role in nurturing resilient food systems and sustaining communities.

08/03/2026

Daughters of the Sahel – Custodians of Civilisation’s First Grains

This March, as the world marks International Women’s Day on 8th March, we turn to the Sahel—a vast ribbon of thirsty earth between the Sahara Desert and savannah—where women are quietly reshaping the future. In a month that honours the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, it is fitting to focus on this fragile region, where women stand at the centre of food security and community survival.

As many men migrate in search of work, women remain to farm millet, manage wells, tend livestock, and lead households through drought and erratic rains. At first light, when the harmattan wind cools the parched ground, they walk into the fields with calabashes; containers made of dried gourd or fruit casings, and seed sacks, pressing millet into cracked soil—trusting a crop that “grows even when the rain is a rumour.” In good years, fields shimmer gold; in harsh ones, they turn to dust. Still, resilient like the grains they sow, the women labour and hope.

They share seed, labour, and wisdom, sustaining families and redefining leadership and resilience across this harsh “hunger belt.”

This month’s illustration draws inspiration from Bogolan (bògòlanfini), the mud-cloth tradition of Mali’s Bamana people—handwoven cotton dyed with fermented mud and plant extracts in earthy yellow, white, and black, marked by symbolic geometric patterns carrying cultural memory. Once worn for protection and rites of passage, it is now celebrated worldwide in art, fashion, and décor.

Read more - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/march-i-daughters-sahel-custodians-civilisations-first-y5ehc

This March, as the world marks International Women’s Day on 8th March, we turn to the Sahel—a vast ribbon of thirsty earth between the Sahara Desert and savannah—where women are quietly reshaping the future. In a month that honours the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of ...

17/02/2026

February: New Songs Waft above the Rice Paddies

February’s leaf transports us to Japan’s rice paddies and terraced hillsides, where an annual ritual unfolds each spring—one nearly as old as the nation itself. As cherry blossoms bud, farmers return to glimmering fields to prepare for planting, continuing a tradition that dates back thousands of years. Research suggests rice cultivation reached Japan as early as 1000–400 BCE, traveling through either Korea or China.

This leaf traces Japan’s rice culture from early spring planting to autumn harvest, highlighting women’s central yet often unseen role. It evokes centuries of labour accompanied by traditional farm songs— a fact reflected in classical haikus by Bashō and Raizan from the 17th century. As industrialisation swept Japan, modernity reshaped society. Gradually Japan became an industrial powerhouse, and mechanisation transformed agriculture. While it reduced physical burden, it also erased women’s presence and voices in the fields. Now, after decades that legacy is re-emerging as women across Japan reclaim agriculture through sustainable, organic farming and food ventures. Once constrained by tradition, women now stand as key agents shaping a renewed, resilient future for Japanese farming.

The visual is inspired by the extraordinary woodblock prints of Japan. It shows farmers transplanting rice in flooded emerald-blue paddies—a technique followed since the 9th century BCE—against a backdrop of Mount Fuji. Japanese woodblock printing, or mokuhanga, flourished during the Edo period (1603–1868). With bold lines and luminous watercolour; unlike oil paints used in western woodblock prints, these prints captured sweeping landscapes, dramatic kabuki actors, and intimate moments of everyday life, offering a vivid window into a vibrant, fleeting world that’s lost to time’s march.

What emerges through this leaf is a tribute to a living inheritance, renewed each spring with soil, sunlight, water, and patience.