Daily Current Affairs 9 November 2026: Top Exam-Ready News for SSC, Railway and Banking

Cancer patients get cheaper medicines from today. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority capped trade margins on 137 anti-cancer drugs at 30% of MRP, and the revised prices take effect on 9 November 2026. That single notification is worth more marks than ten political headlines, because SSC and Railway papers love a scheme-plus-regulator pairing.

Below are 20 verified facts from the last 24 hours, each tagged with the exam that is most likely to ask it. Every figure here was cross-checked against PIB, the PMO release page, RBI material or a primary report. Where a fact came only from a digest and no official release could be traced, it is marked "(verify)" so you do not memorise something shaky.

National

• NPPA capped trade margins on 137 non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines at 30% of MRP, with revised retail prices effective 9 November 2026. Exam tag: All exams
• Mahabharata, Arthashastra and Rajatarangini manuscripts entered UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register at the 11th MOWCAP session held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Exam tag: All exams
• The Union Cabinet 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 under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Exam tag: SSC / Banking
• TRAI launched "Network Anubhav", a geospatial platform that shows location-wise mobile network test results and also hosts online Do Not Disturb services. Exam tag: SSC / Railway

Two more central items are worth a line each. The Union Home Minister inaugurated the Martyrs' Memorial of the First War of Independence 1857 at Ambala, Haryana, built at a cost of about ₹594 crore across 22 acres. The Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare also opened its 5th nationwide Digital Life Certificate campaign, which runs until 30 November 2026 and uses the Jeevan Pramaan platform. Separately, the Supreme Court held in Sujit Das v. Union of India (2026) that the 24-hour production deadline under Article 22(2) runs from the moment of actual detention, not from the time arrest is formally recorded. Learn that Article number. It repeats.

International

• The Bahamas became the 116th member country of the International Solar Alliance, handing over its Instrument of Accession at the 9th ISA Assembly in New Delhi. Exam tag: All exams
• India and the European Union concluded negotiations for India's association with Horizon Europe on 7 November 2026; Horizon Europe is the EU research and innovation programme for 2021-2027 with a budget of €93.5 billion. Exam tag: SSC / Banking
• COP31 under the UNFCCC opens at Antalya, Türkiye, and runs from 9 to 20 November 2026 (verify). Exam tag: All exams

Three supporting points from the same window. India was re-elected President of the International Solar Alliance for a third consecutive term at the Assembly in New Delhi, and the ISA secretariat remains at Gurugram, Haryana, after the India-France launch at COP21 in Paris in 2015. The 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was held at St. John's in Antigua and Barbuda on 3 and 4 November 2026, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar representing India. And MINURSO, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara set up in 1991, ended after 35 years when the Security Council did not renew its mandate.

Economy & Banking

• Gross GST collections in October 2026 stood at ₹2.31 lakh crore, up 22.9% year on year, with net revenue rising 25.6% and the figure ranking as the second-highest monthly collection so far. Exam tag: Banking / SSC
• The Cabinet approved a ₹14,500 crore Viability Gap Funding scheme for 92 GWh of grid-scale energy storage for 2026-27 to 2030-31, split as 60 GWh pumped storage, 30 GWh battery storage and 2 GWh emerging technologies. Exam tag: Banking / SSC
• RBI's draft Priority Sector Lending Directions, 2026 keep the PSL target for Urban Co-operative Banks unchanged at 60% of adjusted net bank credit. Exam tag: Banking
• RBI consolidated its cyber-security directions for non-bank Payment System Operators into a single framework, tightening oversight of wallets, PPI issuers and payment aggregators. Exam tag: Banking

The supporting economy file is thick this week. The Cabinet also cleared a Capex Support Scheme for critical mineral processing with an outlay of ₹2,814 crore and a 30% capital subsidy, covering lithium and nickel plants with cobalt recovered as a by-product. Under the ₹40,000 crore Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme, 12 new applications were approved, taking the total to 118 proposed units with expected production of ₹39,045 crore and 7,127 direct jobs. The Centre ordered weekly stock disclosure for rice and paddy in six categories to curb hoarding. State Bank of India opened a branch in Texas, the first time its California-based subsidiary has moved outside California. For the record, the repo rate stayed at 5.50% after the October 2026 MPC, so do not write a cut in your answer sheet.

Sports

• India beat Japan 4-1 to win the Men's Hockey Asian Champions Trophy 2026 at Mohali, taking a sixth title overall and a third in a row. Exam tag: All exams
• Mohammed Shami retired from Test cricket with 229 wickets in 64 Tests, continuing in white-ball formats. Exam tag: All exams
• India won 59 medals, including 9 gold, at the 47th World Armwrestling Championship in New Delhi held from 29 October to 6 November 2026 (verify). Exam tag: All exams

Two smaller results you can still be asked. V. Pranav won the Open title at the FIDE World Junior Blitz Championship in Al Ain, UAE, with 10.5 points from 13 games (verify). At the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal, India's tally reached seven medals, three silver and four bronze, with Tanvi Patri taking badminton silver and Dhinidhi Desinghu winning swimming bronze (verify).

Awards

• REACH, the Resource Group for Education and Advocacy for Community Health, won the Kochon Prize 2026 awarded by the Kochon Foundation with the Stop TB Partnership, becoming the first Indian civil-society non-profit to receive it. Exam tag: All exams
• Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, founder and chairman of Narayana Health, was conferred France's Knight of the National Order of Merit at a ceremony in Bengaluru. Exam tag: All exams

Two more honours from the same week. The Ministry of Railways finished first among central ministries in the PM Surya Ghar Excellence Award 2026 in the "Maximum Buildings Solarised" category, given by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy under PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. Chandigarh Police received the President's Colour during its Diamond Jubilee and 60th Raising Day celebrations (verify). Remember that the President's Colour is the highest honour given to a military or police unit in India.

Science & Defence

• The Ministry of Defence signed contracts worth ₹53,866.50 crore for eight Next Generation Corvettes, with five going to Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers and three to Goa Shipyard Limited. Exam tag: Defence / SSC
• DRDO flight-tested the Pralay quasi-ballistic missile from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast; it was developed by Research Centre Imarat, Hyderabad, and has a range of roughly 150 to 500 km depending on payload. Exam tag: Defence / Railway
• ISRO's NVS-03 navigation satellite, launched on GSLV-F18, was activated and restored NavIC service. Exam tag: Defence / SSC

Four supporting defence items. India and Myanmar held their inaugural tri-services humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise, RAHAT MITRA, at Chennai with over 300 personnel. INS Sahyadri, an indigenous guided-missile stealth frigate, reached Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan for MALABAR 2026 alongside the United States, Japan and Australia. An IAF IL-76MD transport aircraft landed at Nyoma Airfield in Ladakh at 13,629 feet, the highest-altitude landing recorded by that aircraft type. The maiden BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise was conducted under the Andaman and Nicobar Command, India's only tri-services command. On the civil-science side, CERT-In released AI Security Auditing Guidelines, and NITI Aayog launched the India S&T Scoreboard on 3 November 2026 covering 36 States and Union Territories, with Tamil Nadu on top in research publications.

The Allianz tracker is the one to memorise. India climbed five places to 45th out of 65 economies that together account for 81% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and India's emissions fell 0.2% in 2025 even as the economy grew. Allianz Research released it on 5 November 2026.

Important Days

• 9 November is National Legal Services Day, marking the day the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 came into force in 1995, with free legal aid traced to Article 39A of the Constitution. Exam tag: All exams

Official 2026 themes for these days were not traceable to a UNESCO or ministry release at the time of writing, so the table gives the significance instead of a theme string. If you see a theme floating on social media today, check it against the official page before you write it in a notebook.

Today's 15 Questions Are a Separate Quiz Set

You will not find MCQs inside this page, and that is deliberate. Reading and testing are two different jobs for your brain. When the answer sits three lines below the fact, you recognise it instead of recalling it, and recognition feels like learning without being learning.

So today's 15 questions are published as a separate quiz set on ExamAtlas. Read this page once, close it, then attempt the quiz cold. The gap between what you thought you knew and what you could actually produce is the only honest score you will get. ExamAtlas marks each attempt topic-wise, so you can see whether the misses were in Economy, Defence or Important Days rather than guessing at "current affairs is weak".

Final Word

One caveat before you go. Six items on this page carry a "(verify)" tag because only aggregator digests carried them and no PIB, RBI or ministry release could be traced in time. Those are safe to read and unsafe to quote in a mains answer. The rest, including the GST figure, the corvette contract value, the VGF outlay and the UNESCO listing, sit on official or primary sources.

Your practical next step is small. Pick the three numbers you are most likely to forget from today, probably ₹53,866.50 crore, 92 GWh and 116 members, and write them on the same page as last week's numbers. Current affairs is lost in the gaps between days, not in the days themselves.

Aaj ka full CA quiz: ExamAtlas.com