This Article Writing – BCR CA Foundation Study Material is designed strictly as per the latest syllabus and exam pattern.
Article Writing – BCR CA Foundation Study Material
Question 1.
Write an article in about 500 words on “crowdfunding”.
Answer:
In recent decades several innovations have taken place in the financial sector. Crowdfunding is one of them. Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project by raising money from a large number of people. It is a method of raising capital collectively from friends, family, customers, and individual investors through an e-platform for a specific venture. It provides one alternative channel of funding for startups. Crowdfunding is the opposite of the traditional approach to business finance.
A business plan is first prepared and the idea is then put before banks and financial institutions, which limits funding options to few key players. Failure to approach the right investor at the right time could lead to an unsuccessful attempt to raise money. On the other hand, crowdfunding provides entrepreneurs a single platform to build, showcase and sell ideas. Funds can be raised in a specified time frame (e.g. 90 days). Fees and rules differ across different platforms. In most common and popular forms of crowdfunding, investors are neither promised repayment nor any stake in the venture if it is successful. Crowdfunding typically tries to resolve the issues of marketing and finance together.
The crowdfunding model has three main players: the project initiator (proposer of idea or project to be funded), individuals or groups who support the idea, and the platform that brings the parties together to launch the idea. Crowdfunding has been used to fund a wide range of ventures – both for-profit and not-for-profit-projects. Enterprises that lack capital raise funds from personal savings or close friends and relatives. Crowdfunding helps reduce the chance of promising projects not getting initiated due to a shortage of funds. It thus prevents the loss of jobs and potential innovations.
Question 2.
Write an article on the topic of ‘Global Warming.’
Answer:
The Earth’s temperature is increasing. Global warming is indeed one of the burning issues that the world is grappling with. The globe is reeling under the impact of climatic changes resulting as a consequence of global warming and if urgent & drastic steps are not resorted to, this global event has the potential of wiping out life from this planet.
However, the terms Global Warming and Climatic changes are commonly misinterpreted as synonyms. Climatic changes refer to long-term changes in the average weather conditions of a region or across the globe due to natural processes. On the other hand, Global warming is primarily, the increase in earth’s surface temperature on a sustained basis caused primarily on account of human activities. Ever since the advent of rapid industrialization in the late 1800s and early 1900s, human activities have caused immense harm to the environment. As per a report by NASA, the temperature of the earth has risen over the past 50 years at a rate which is twice the rate at which the temperature increase took place over the last 100 years. Further, the rate at which the temperature of the earth is predicted to rise over the next century is expected to be 20 times faster. This data is certainly alarming and the disastrous effects of global warming around us, bear testimony to the bleak future ahead.
The primary reason for global warming and its consequent adverse impact on climate as well as the ecological system is primarily on account of the greenhouse effect. As per this phenomenon, the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc. emitted in process of a variety of human activities of commercial nature, absorb the infrared radiations in the lower layers of the atmosphere of the earth thereby acting as a greenhouse and increasing its temperature.
The effects of global warming are visible in the manifestations of rising sea levels, flooding of coastal areas, frequent weather events of extreme nature, melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, and increased frequency of droughts and wildfires. This is also resulting in the extinction of species which is touted by researchers as ‘the sixth mass extinction’ of animal and plant life of a more severe nature than the preceding 5 mass extinctions known to humans. The sole reason behind it is the unscrupulous and indifferent nature of human activities in the name of progress and development. Global warming has resulted not only in diminishing crop produce thereby reducing food security; it is also responsible for the acute water stress on a global scale.
The only solution lies in ensuring rapid and dramatic global efforts to mitigate the human activities responsible for global warming. This includes reducing emissions by engaging in energy-efficient techniques of production, utilization, and propagation of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind energy, containing deforestation and simultaneously increasing efforts for reforestation. Prompt efforts must be made to reduce carbon footprints by the nations and encouraging countries to resort to the principle of sustainable development while striving to meet their national goals for growth and development. Global efforts for reducing global warming and its impact are being spearheaded by the United Nations and all the member countries are pledging a contribution to this cause and make a difference while there is still time.
Efforts must be made by all the citizens of the globe even at the individual level to make efforts to mitigate global warming every day, however small they might appear to be. Small efforts to make lifestyle changes like- reduced use of vehicles, carpooling, less use of gadgets and equipment emitting greenhouse gases, engaging in the consumption of vegetarian products grown organically etc.
can make a difference in the long run. People can take active steps to reduce pollution, resort to eco-friendly ways of doing business, exercise population control and make efforts to spread awareness regarding this compelling issue. The biggest challenge is to control the spiraling situation before the time runs out and the clock is surely ticking.
Question 3.
Write an article on sustainable development.
Answer:
3. Sustainable Development
Development, to be sustainable, must include not merely material growth, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the blossoming of cultural, intellectual, spiritual and other non-material aspects of human existence. Unfortunately, the Western notion of development has side-lined all these aspects and brought materialism to the centre stage. Even all intellectual and cultural growth seems to be geared towards the aim of making money and accumulating goods. This has led to the fast depletion of renewable resources and outflow of industrial effluents and wastes adversely affecting the environment. Consequently, it is now recognized that development to be real for all must be ‘sustainable development.
Sustainable development seems to have different meanings for different people. The World Commission on Environment and Development defines it as “development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. As such sustainable development is the process in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and the institutional changes are all made consistent with the future as well as present needs. Central to the concept of sustainability is the carrying capacity approach which can be defined as the maximum rate of resource consumption and waste disposal that can be sustained indefinitely in a given region without progressively impairing diversity and ecological integrity.
Meeting the needs of the poor in this generation is an essential aspect of sustainably meeting the needs of the subsequent generations. Thus, sustainable development is a process in which economic, fiscal, trade, energy, agricultural and industrial policies are designed to bring about a development that improves health care, education, and social well-being and reduces absolute poverty through lasting and secure livelihood that minimizes resource depletion, environmental degradation, cultural disruption and social instability. Sustainable development demands a reduction in fertility rates by increasing the literacy and education of women and girls. It demands a drastic reduction in the inefficiency and wastage in our schooling system expressed in the massive drop-out rates and educated unemployment. It demands such a policy that is based on a dispersed pattern of human settlements, low-cost water supply, and housing and the recycling of wastes.
It demands optimal use of the medical infrastructure that we have built and will further build particularly in rural areas. Above all, it demands a positive as against the present normative, approach to the major socio-economic problems of unemployment, poverty and inequality, which can never be addressed effectively without the involvement of people. After all, development is for people and as such an essential element in the development process is people’s participation. It may be emphasized that even with the best of intentions planning for sustainable development can never be effective without the participation of people.
PRACTICE QUESTIONS:
Write articles on the following topics in about 500 words each:-
- India’s Youth
- Safety of Children in Schools
- Shrinking Rivers in India
- The Global Crisis of Plastic Pollution (e) The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin.
- Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility
- Yoga – a way of living
- Plight of Education System in India
- What is more important Physical fitness or Mental-fitness
- Social media interferes with personal life.
- Changing Roles of Women in Society
- Demonetisation
- GST – fruitfulness & pitfalls.
Note: There is no one way of writing the articles. An article can be written in multiple ways owing to differences in perspective. Students are advised to engage in a thorough reading of social, economic & political issues as well as lifestyle-related topics to amass the requisite knowledge base to write articles.