The Government of India has tied up with NDTV's Indianroots to launch Indianroots Fashion Accelerator (IFA). The three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ministry of Textiles and NDTV’s e-commerce business is aimed at popularizing Indian Handloom textiles, an initiative to support textile industries in the country. The IFA project will support individuals in the fashion industry through incubation and production support, the Government stated in an official release. Although it's unclear as to how this incubation will work, through this, India Handloom Brand will provide an interface where fashion professionals will be able to access facilities of Weavers Service Centres and handloom clusters . It will also connect fashion designers with handloom sector. The India Handloom brand was launched in August 2015, and the initiative was aimed at providing customers with hand woven, niche products. By April 1, 170 handloom producing enterprises were registered under the brand in 41 product categories. Various e-commerce platforms and retail chains have been roped into market India Handloom-branded merchandise. In August 2015, IndianRoots had also tied up with Upendra Maharathi Shilp Sansthan (UMSAS) of Bihar Government, to showcase the artisanship of Bihar’s handicraft makers on the platform. This tie-up was a month after they announced their partnership with Banka Silk, a handloom brand from Bihar to sell products made by local artisans of Banka district in Bihar on its platform. Similar initiatives Central and State governments have been working on popularizing textiles and helping small-scale entrepreneurs, with the help of online platforms, to reach a larger audience for a while now. - In March, Amazon India had tied-up with the Telangana State…
