Current Affairs 30 October 2026: Today's Top 20 Exam-Ready Facts

Three things from the last 24 hours will sit in question papers for months: the Union Cabinet's Pradhan Mantri Viksit Gram Swaraj Yojana at ₹7,395.55 crore, ISRO's GSLV-F18/NVS-03 launch slotted for 23:51 IST tonight, and the ₹11,096.55 crore low-tension power rebuild cleared by the Bihar Cabinet. Each one carries a number, and numbers are what SSC and BPSC ask about.

Below are 20 facts from 29 and 30 October 2026, each with the exams it matters for. Read them once properly, then take the daily quiz on ExamAtlas, which is built from exactly these facts. Ten minutes will tell you whether today's news actually stuck.

National

1. 1. PM Viksit Gram Swaraj Yojana approved. The Union Cabinet cleared PM-VGSY as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for 2026-27 to 2030-31 with an outlay of ₹7,395.55 crore, split as Centre ₹4,869.48 crore and States ₹2,526.07 crore. It covers roughly 32 lakh elected representatives and functionaries across more than 2.55 lakh Panchayats, and introduces PANCHAM, an AI chatbot running in 17 languages. The scheme replaces the Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, launched on 24 April 2018. Exam tag: All exams, BPSC, BSSC
2. 2. PM-KISAN 24th instalment released from Gujarat. On 30 October 2026 the Prime Minister releases the 24th instalment of PM-KISAN worth about ₹19,000 crore from Banaskantha, Gujarat, alongside development projects worth over ₹14,000 crore. Separate projects worth over ₹400 crore follow at Ekta Nagar on 31 October. Among the named items: the four-to-eight laning of the Ahmedabad-Mehsana Road (SH-41) at about ₹2,600 crore, and the Bharat Bovine Breeding and Research Centre at Bhildi spread over 127 acres for the Kankrej cattle breed. Exam tag: SSC, Railway, All exams
3. 3. Dearness Allowance raised to 63 per cent. The Cabinet approved a 3 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief effective 1 July 2026, taking the rate from 60 per cent to 63 per cent of basic pay or pension. About 48.54 lakh central government employees and 68.71 lakh pensioners benefit, at an annual cost of roughly ₹10,016.10 crore. Exam tag: SSC, Railway, Banking

One more National item worth a line: the Cabinet also cleared a Container Manufacturing Promotion Scheme with an outlay of ₹10,000 crore running through FY 2039-40, aiming to lift annual container capacity about tenfold to 7.5 lakh TEUs. Shipping and logistics questions have grown in RRB NTPC general awareness, so keep the TEU figure.

Appointments in the news (Person - Post)

International

4. 4. 12th BRICS Parliamentary Forum held in New Delhi. India hosted the forum on 26-27 October 2026, and the Presiding Officers and representatives of BRICS parliaments adopted a Joint Declaration at the close. For prelims, remember the host city and the ordinal: New Delhi, 12th edition. Exam tag: All exams, BPSC
5. 5. 13th ADMM-Plus in Cebu, Philippines. The ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus was held on 28-29 October 2026 at Cebu under the Philippines' chairmanship, where the Raksha Mantri held bilateral talks with South Korea's Minister of National Defense. ADMM-Plus brings the ten ASEAN states together with eight partner countries, India among them. Exam tag: All exams, Defence
6. 6. World Bank's Commodity Markets Outlook, 28 October. The report projects global commodity prices rising about 23 per cent in 2026 and falling about 7 per cent in 2027. Energy prices are pegged at roughly +32 per cent in 2026, with Brent crude averaging US$91 a barrel in 2026 against US$69 in 2025. Food prices are put at about +10 per cent in 2026. Exam tag: Banking, SSC CGL

Economy & Banking

7. 7. RBI hikes repo rate to 5.50 per cent. In its October 2026 review the Monetary Policy Committee raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent and shifted the stance from neutral to calibrated tightening. If you are sitting IBPS or SBI this cycle, the stance word matters as much as the number. Exam tag: Banking, SSC, Railway
8. 8. Anup Bagchi takes charge at HDFC Bank. He assumed office as Managing Director and CEO on 27 October 2026, after Sashidhar Jagdishan stepped down at the close of business on 26 October. Jagdishan had led the bank since October 2020, when he succeeded Aditya Puri. Bagchi's earlier career was at ICICI Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. Exam tag: Banking, All exams
9. 9. Ethanol sourcing window changed. Oil marketing companies have been told they cannot buy ethanol produced from sugar or sugarcane-derived feedstock for the supply year running 1 November 2026 to 31 October 2027 (verify). The Department of Food and Public Distribution separately asked sugar mills to report all bulk sugar sales of FY 2025-26 by 30 October. Exam tag: Banking, BPSC

Sports

10. 10. India thrash China 5-2 at the Asian Champions Trophy. Playing on 29 October 2026 at the Olympian Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium in Punjab, India beat China 5-2. Captain Harmanpreet Singh and Sukhjeet Singh scored two each and Jugraj Singh added the fifth in the 47th minute. China's goals came from Yang Peng (26') and Chen Chongcong (36'). India are the defending champions and have now won both their opening matches. Exam tag: All exams
11. 11. New Zealand take the 4th T20I by 50 runs. New Zealand beat India by 50 runs despite a late push from Shivam Dube, leaving India 3-1 ahead in the series (verify). The fifth and final T20I is at Seddon Park, Hamilton on 1 November 2026. Exam tag: All exams

Sports results at a glance (Event - Winner)

Awards

12. 12. Honour of Ashoka Award 2026 presented in New Delhi. The ceremony was held at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 27 October 2026, recognising figures from the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and cinema and entertainment. Individual citation details were not published in full, so treat the names as pending rather than memorising a list (verify). Exam tag: All exams

For ranking questions, the three indices in active circulation this October are below. Examiners almost always ask India's rank and the topper, nothing else, so learn the pair.

Index and rankings (Index - India's Rank - Topper)

Science & Defence

13. 13. GSLV-F18 to launch NVS-03 tonight. ISRO has scheduled the GSLV-F18/NVS-03 mission for 30 October 2026 at 23:51 hours IST from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR), Sriharikota. NVS-03 weighs about 2,250 kg, goes into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, and is the third satellite of the second-generation NavIC series. It carries an indigenous atomic clock and adds the L1 navigation frequency to the existing L5 and S-band signals. Exam tag: All exams, SSC, Railway
14. 14. Why this NavIC launch matters. NavIC, short for Navigation with Indian Constellation, serves India and a region extending about 1,500 km beyond its boundary, with position accuracy better than 20 metres and timing accuracy better than 40 nanoseconds. Only three satellites are currently usable, below the minimum of four a working constellation needs, after NVS-02 failed to raise its orbit in January 2025 because a pyro valve in the oxidiser line did not get its drive signal. Exam tag: SSC, Railway, All exams
15. 15. C-295 assembly line and the Quantum Mission. The Tata Advanced Systems and Airbus facility at Vadodara, Gujarat is building C-295 transport aircraft to replace the ageing Avro-748 fleet, under a contract for 56 aircraft of which 16 arrive flyaway from Spain and 40 are made in India. Separately, the National Quantum Mission, approved at ₹6,003.65 crore for 2023-24 to 2030-31, targets 50 to 1,000 physical qubits in eight years across four thematic hubs. Exam tag: Defence, SSC, Railway

The Jal Shakti Ministry also launched the Punah Bharan app, developed by BISAG-N with the National Water Mission, which identifies artificial groundwater recharge zones within a radius of up to 3 km. Small item, very askable.

Bihar-Jharkhand Special

This is the section BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police, JSSC and JPSC candidates should not skim. Both state Cabinets met this week and both cleared unusually long agendas.

16. 16. Bihar Cabinet clears 43 proposals and the MSME Policy 2026. Meeting at the Patna secretariat on 28 October 2026 under Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, the Cabinet approved 43 proposals. The MSME Policy 2026 runs five years on ten pillars and targets one crore entrepreneurial families, one crore direct and indirect jobs, a credit-deposit ratio of 75 per cent, at least one industrial cluster in every district, and MSME centres in all 38 districts. The Cabinet also cleared the Micro and Small Enterprise Facilitation Council Rules, 2026. Exam tag: BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police
17. 17. ₹11,096.55 crore for Bihar's low-tension power network. The scheme upgrades the LT distribution network in phases over a maximum of three years, with ₹6,066 crore for the North Bihar Power Distribution Company and ₹5,030.55 crore for the South Bihar Power Distribution Company. Both may borrow from banks against a state government guarantee. The reason is in one statistic: Bihar's peak demand went from 1,802 MW in 2012 to 9,475 MW. Exam tag: BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police
18. 18. Bihar's other approvals, the ones that make good one-liners. A new sugar mill at Warisaliganj in Nawada with a distillery, co-generation plant and compressed biogas unit. ₹18.21 crore for a feasibility study of an underground road corridor in Patna, covering routes such as R Block Crossing to Kankarbagh and Dak Bungalow Crossing to Patna Women's College. ₹12 crore for the Bihar State Games 2026 with about 5,500 players across 24 disciplines, organised by the Bihar Olympic Association. ₹43.50 crore as viability gap funding for regional air connectivity under UDAN, paid over 29 months from May 2026 to September 2028. Also cleared: ₹8.39 crore for a safety assessment of 24 dams under the Dam Safety Act, 2021, and three new City SP posts at Motihari, Purnia and Saran. Exam tag: BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police, BTET
19. 19. Jharkhand Cabinet clears 62 proposals and calls a special session. On 27 October 2026 the Cabinet under Chief Minister Hemant Soren approved 62 proposals and sanctioned two-day special sittings of the sixth Jharkhand Legislative Assembly on 25 and 26 November 2026, to take up the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and mining legislation, including amendments to the schedule of the Jharkhand Mineral Bearing Land Cess Act, 2024. The Jharkhand Mineral Exploration and Block Development Policy, 2026 was also approved. Exam tag: JSSC, JPSC, JTET
20. 20. Jharkhand's big-ticket sanctions. ₹607.03 crore for the Neemdih-Kukru mega lift irrigation scheme in Seraikela-Kharsawan, lifting water from the Chandil reservoir through underground pipelines to the Neemdih and Kukru blocks. ₹545.38 crore for a new 500-bed hospital at MGM Medical College, Jamshedpur, and ₹284.17 crore for infrastructure tied to the 5,000-bed Jharkhand Medico City in Ranchi. The Cabinet also cleared 7,890 handpumps, a municipal land and building transfer surcharge equal to 10 per cent of applicable stamp duty and registration fee, and a rule that universities and colleges earmark 2 per cent of their annual budgets for healthcare. Exam tag: JSSC, JPSC, JTET

A note for Jharkhand candidates: the Neemdih-Kukru figure of ₹607.03 crore was reported by only one wire agency, while the 62-proposal count and the November session dates appear in several. Carry all three, but if a figure is challenged in an answer key, the irrigation amount is the softest of the lot.

Important Days

One extra detail on Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, because it is this year's most likely descriptive question: the Ekta Parade at Ekta Nagar features the Central Armed Police Forces, State Police Forces and Central Police Organisations, with emphasis on gains against Left-Wing Extremism. A National School of Drama presentation titled "Naxal Mukt Bharat" brings about 2,000 artists from 126 LWE-affected districts, and a larger cultural segment involves roughly 5,000 artists. Bharat Parv 2026 opened at Ekta Nagar on 30 October and runs to 15 November 2026.

A caveat you should actually act on. Two reliable sites give different themes for World Thrift Day 2026, one saying safe digital saving and financial literacy for young savers, the other "Save Today, Secure Tomorrow". Until a bank or RBI circular settles it, answer theme questions on World Thrift Day only if the options force a choice, and never argue a theme in a representation. The date, 30 October in India, is the safe part.

Final Word

If you have twenty minutes and not an hour, the three facts to carry out of today are the PM-VGSY outlay, the repo rate at 5.50 per cent with its stance, and your own state's Cabinet numbers. Those three cover the highest-frequency question shapes in SSC, Banking and the state commissions respectively.

One habit worth building: write the number before the name. Most candidates remember that Bihar cleared a power scheme and forget whether it was ₹11,096 crore or ₹1,109 crore, which is exactly the pair an examiner will put in the options. ExamAtlas has free exam-specific mocks with AI analytics that flag which topics your accuracy is slipping in, and the daily current-affairs quiz is built from the same facts you just read.

Aaj ka full CA quiz: ExamAtlas.com