Current Affairs 6 November 2026: Top 20 Exam-Ready Facts for SSC, Railway and Banking

The Union Cabinet cleared four separate schemes in a single sitting on 4 November 2026, which is why today's National and Economy sections are heavier than a normal weekday. Add a hockey title won in Mohali and a navigation satellite parked in orbit, and you get a news cycle that SSC, RRB and Banking paper-setters will quarry for months.

Each fact below is one sentence with the exams it matters for. Read it once in the morning, then test yourself in the evening. The 15 questions built on today's news sit in a separate quiz set, and there is a short note near the end on why reading and testing are kept apart.

National

Two of the four Cabinet decisions land squarely in the Polity and Schemes part of your syllabus. Fast Track Special Courts have been a standing General Awareness favourite since 2019, and the court-count jump is the kind of before-and-after number examiners like. The critical mineral scheme matters for a different reason: lithium and nickel processing capacity is now an economy question, not a geography one.

• The Union Cabinet approved continuing the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Fast Track Special Courts, including exclusive POCSO courts, for five years from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2031 at a total outlay of ₹3,788.04 crore, with the central share of ₹2,353.15 crore funded through the Nirbhaya Fund. Exam tag: SSC / All exams
• Functional Fast Track Special Courts will rise from 779 to 850 under that approval, and the existing 779 courts, which include 399 exclusive POCSO courts across 29 States and UTs, have disposed of 4,02,457 cases since the scheme began on 2 October 2019. Exam tag: SSC / All exams
• The Cabinet cleared a Capex Support Scheme for critical mineral processing with an outlay of ₹2,814 crore for 2026-27 to 2030-31, giving a 30% capital subsidy to four plants, two lithium and two nickel, with cobalt recovered as a by-product. Exam tag: SSC / Railway / Banking
• The Ministry of Civil Aviation notified the Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026 on 4 November, whose 220 rules replace the Aircraft Rules, 1937 and come into force on 1 January 2027. Exam tag: SSC / All exams

The aviation rulebook is worth five minutes of your time. It runs to 8 chapters and 6 schedules, covers 23 categories of licences and certificates, and sets a graded penalty scale running from ₹10,000 to ₹1 crore. It also records that India's operational airports went from 74 in 2014 to 166 by October 2026, and it keeps the aircraft nationality mark VT followed by three capital letters. The parent law, the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, replaced the Aircraft Act, 1934 with effect from 1 January 2025.

Two more national items are worth a line each. Indian Railways is surveying a station at roughly 5,256 metres below Tanglang La on the proposed 489 km Bilaspur-Manali-Leh broad-gauge line, which would be among the highest railway stations anywhere. Separately, the Prime Minister noted on 5 November that metro networks now run about 1,200 km across 26 cities, against 248 km in 5 cities in 2014. The Health Ministry has also put out a draft amendment to the Drugs Rules, 1945 that would allow immediate suspension of a manufacturing licence when a medicine is declared not of standard quality, open for comments for 30 days.

International

Both of today's international items are about India building standing instruments rather than signing one-off statements. A Line of Credit and a four-country research network are easier to question than a joint communique, so expect them in a one-liner.

• India announced a USD 500 million Line of Credit to Guyana on 5 November 2026, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar making the announcement. Exam tag: All exams
• India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives launched the Bay of Bengal Network of Ocean Researchers for Fisheries (BOB-NOR) at Kochi on 5 November 2026. Exam tag: SSC / All exams

Keep two related items in your revision notes. India chairs the Kimberley Process in 2026, held a consultation at Luanda on 3 November, and will host the Kimberley Process Plenary in New Delhi from 30 November to 4 December 2026. At the CBD COP-17 meeting in Yerevan on 3 November, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav released India's guidelines on Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures, backed by a GEF-8 project of USD 60.79 million. The Kimberley Process is about rough diamond certification, and that single line is the one most papers want.

Economy & Banking

Banking aspirants get the densest section today. The repo rate position has not changed since October, but the stance has, and a stance question is harder than a rate question. The energy storage scheme is the biggest rupee figure of the day.

• The Cabinet approved a Viability Gap Funding scheme of ₹14,500 crore for 2026-27 to 2030-31 to develop 92 GWh of grid-scale energy storage, split as 60 GWh pumped hydro, 30 GWh battery storage and 2 GWh alternative technologies, and expected to pull in investment of ₹97,600 crore. Exam tag: Banking / SSC
• India's policy repo rate stands at 5.50% after the Monetary Policy Committee raised it by 25 basis points on 7 October 2026 and shifted the stance to calibrated tightening, with the SDF at 5.25% and the MSF and Bank Rate at 5.75%. Exam tag: Banking
• The Reserve Bank released draft Directions consolidating its Priority Sector Lending instructions on 5 November 2026, inviting public comments until 26 November 2026. Exam tag: Banking
• The Competition Commission of India approved Kotak Mahindra Bank's acquisition of Deutsche Bank's India retail banking, private banking and wealth management business on 4 November 2026. Exam tag: Banking

Battery storage projects under the new scheme must meet a minimum 40% Domestic Content Requirement, and capacity will be allotted through tariff-based competitive bidding. The 92 GWh target is roughly 170% of present grid-scale storage capacity, against a projected requirement of 411 GWh by 2031-32. On the RBI's own desk, directions on two urban co-operative banks were extended by three months, an overnight variable rate reverse repo auction on 5 November drew ₹7,767 crore against a notified ₹75,000 crore at a cut-off of 5.49%, and twelve States and UTs are set to raise ₹29,050 crore through a State Government Securities auction on 9 November.

Two further economy items carry a (verify) flag because only one source reported them. The Centre is said to have released ₹1,09,019 crore of tax devolution to States on 5 November, advanced from 10 November for the festive season, with Uttar Pradesh taking the largest share at ₹19,208 crore (verify). The Cabinet is also reported to have approved VISTAR, the Viksit Bharat Initiative for Statistical Transformation, Analytics and Research, with an outlay of ₹4,371.10 crore for 2026-27 to 2030-31, including the 8th Economic Census (verify). On 5 November the ninth tranche of critical and strategic mineral e-auction, covering 20 blocks, was launched at Goa by G. Kishan Reddy, with bids due by 7 January 2027.

Sports

A title, a chase and a teenager's first. All three are plain one-liner material, and the hockey result is the single most likely sports question from this week.

• India beat Japan 4-1 in the Asian Champions Trophy 2026 men's hockey final at the Olympian Balbir Singh Senior International Hockey Stadium, Mohali, on 5 November 2026, taking a record sixth title under captain Harmanpreet Singh. Exam tag: All exams
• India beat New Zealand by 5 wickets in the first ODI at Eden Park, Auckland on 4 November 2026, with Virat Kohli making 74 off 51 balls and Arshdeep Singh taking 4 wickets. Exam tag: All exams
• Tanvi Patri, aged 15, became the first Indian badminton player to reach a Youth Olympic Games girls' singles final, beating Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe 21-14, 11-21, 21-19 at Dakar 2026. Exam tag: All exams

India reached the revised target of 143 in 22.4 overs after New Zealand were bowled out for 185 in 40.2 overs, and lead the five-match series 1-0. In the hockey final, Kazumasa Matsumoto put Japan ahead before Shilanand Lakra, Dilpreet Singh, Jugraj Singh and Vivek Sagar Prasad scored in the second half. India had beaten South Korea 8-1 in the semi-final on 4 November. On the shooting range at Doha, a women's 10m air pistol team of Manu Bhaker, Suruchi Inder Singh and Sainyam took silver with 1,738 points behind China's 1,745, and P. V. Sindhu qualified for the BWF World Tour Finals at Hangzhou from 9 to 13 December.

Awards

One books-and-authors item and one scheme-linked award. Books and authors is a section most candidates skip and then lose a mark on, so note the author along with the title.

• Nirmala Lakshman won the Sharjah Award for Best International Non-Fiction Book on 4 November 2026 for The Tamils: A Portrait of a Community. Exam tag: All exams
• The Ministry of Railways received the PM Surya Ghar Excellence Award from Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan on 5 November 2026, having commissioned 351 MW of rooftop solar against a 424 MW target. Exam tag: Railway / SSC

Railways has put rooftop solar on 12,495 of its 15,868 feasible buildings, which is the number behind the award. The 2026 James Dyson Global Sustainability Award went to Filipino engineer Aldrei Ong on 4 November for Sentinel, a low-cost sensor that detects hidden damage in concrete. In the same week, the Vice-President noted at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit that India's non-fossil capacity has crossed 300 GW and that 65 lakh households have come under PM Surya Ghar. That summit at Bharat Mandapam drew 800 delegates from 135 countries across 113 sessions.

Science & Defence

The Agnipath change is the one to learn properly, because it alters a scheme candidates are asked about every cycle. The satellite is simpler, and the number that gets asked is the flight number.

• The Cabinet approved a revision of the Agnipath scheme on 4 November 2026 under which the top 25% of each Agniveer batch is selected on merit for the regular cadre after four years, while the remaining 75% are offered a further two-year engagement and become eligible for consideration for regular enrolment at six years. Exam tag: Defence / All exams
• GSLV-F18, the 20th flight of India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, placed the navigation satellite NVS-03 into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit from the Second Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. Exam tag: Defence / SSC / Railway
• India and Canada held their inaugural Defence Dialogue virtually on 3 November 2026, co-chaired by Amit Telang and Scott Millar. Exam tag: Defence / All exams

Agniveer pay under the revised terms is ₹43,500 a month in the first year of the additional engagement and ₹47,500 in the second, plus allowances, and the government's Seva Nidhi contribution rises to 70% for those who complete the extra period and then exit (verify). Agnipath itself was launched in June 2022. NVS-03 is the third satellite in the next-generation navigation series that continues the IRNSS line, and it carries an indigenous atomic clock while adding an L1 signal alongside L5 and S band.

Three more science items are worth a line. The 2026 Antarctic ozone hole was the seventh largest in 48 years of NASA and NOAA monitoring. Researchers at JNCASR built a silicon chip that lets terahertz waves pass through engineered barriers, aimed at terahertz 6G communication. On the exercise calendar, Tiger Triumph 2026 with the United States began at Visakhapatnam, INS Sahyadri reached Yokosuka on 4 November for MALABAR 2026 alongside Japan, the United States and Australia, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh restated the target of ₹3 lakh crore in defence production and ₹50,000 crore in exports by 2029.

Important Days

Both of today's days are UN-designated, and both have appeared in previous General Awareness papers in the day-and-date format. Learn the date first and the theme second.

• World Tsunami Awareness Day is observed on 5 November, designated by the UN General Assembly in December 2015 through Resolution A/RES/70/203, and traces to the Japanese story of Inamura-no-hi from 5 November 1854. Exam tag: All exams
• The International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict falls on 6 November, which is today. Exam tag: All exams

The Inamura-no-hi story is the detail that turns a date question into an easy mark: a villager set fire to rice sheaves on high ground to guide people away from an incoming tsunami in 1854. India's tsunami warning work sits with INCOIS at Hyderabad, which is the follow-up question you should expect if the first one is easy.

Appointments and Rankings at a Glance

Appointments were thin in this window, so the table below carries the names in the current news cycle with their dates, rather than pretending all three happened yesterday.

The Prime Minister met the Asian Para Games contingent on 5 November, which is how the final tally came back into the news. India's haul included five world records and nine Asian records, with 41 medals from TOPS athletes and 19 from Khelo India athletes. Treat the 114 total as India's best showing at these Games so far.

Why Today's 15 Questions Are in a Separate Quiz Set

You will not find a single MCQ in this post, and that is deliberate. When questions sit a few lines below the facts, your eye picks up the answer before your memory has to work for it, and you walk away feeling prepared without being prepared. That gap between feeling and fact is what costs candidates marks in the exam hall.

So today's 15 questions on this news live in a separate quiz set on ExamAtlas. Read this page in the morning, close it, and attempt the quiz in the evening or the next morning. The delay is the point: retrieving a fact after a gap builds a much stronger memory than reading it twice in five minutes. The quiz is pitched slightly above the real paper standard, so a score of 11 or 12 out of 15 on first attempt is a good day.

Final Word

One honest caveat about today's digest. Several official portals were not reachable while this was being compiled, so the Cabinet figures here come from secondary reporting of the 4 November decisions rather than from the press releases themselves. Anything marked (verify) rested on a single source, and the tax devolution, VISTAR and Seva Nidhi numbers fall in that bucket. Use them for revision, but do not quote them in a Mains answer until you have checked the ministry release.

If you have time for only one thing from this page, take the Cabinet schemes. Scheme names paired with outlay and duration are the most reliably repeated General Awareness question type across SSC, RRB and Banking papers, far more so than sports results. Write the four names on a card tonight: Fast Track Special Courts, the critical mineral Capex scheme, the ₹14,500 crore energy storage VGF, and the Agnipath revision. Tomorrow, see how many of the four outlay figures you can still produce from memory.

Aaj ka full CA quiz: ExamAtlas.com