5 November 2026 Current Affairs: VB-G RAM G, Watershed Guidelines

The joint advisory of the Department of Rural Development and the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying picks out exactly 22 works from the 375 works that the VB-G RAM G Act permits.

The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, came into force on 1 July 2026 and carries a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment for every rural household in a year.

The joint advisory names the State-specific Fodder Resource Development Plans prepared by this institute as guiding documents for planning at the district and block levels, and alongside them it encourages climate-resilient choices such as suitable fodder varieties, perennial grasses and integrated crop-livestock systems.

The advisory repeats that every fodder development and livestock-supportive work must obey the provisions of the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, and among the safeguards it lists is a district-level ceiling of 40 per cent on the material component.

The Ministry of Mines, Government of India, is organising the 4th Conference of Mining Ministers in Goa on 5 and 6 November 2026.

The Ministry of Mines is organising the 4th Conference of Mining Ministers on 5 and 6 November 2026 in Goa, and it has described the event as part of its continued engagement with State Governments for the collective advancement of the mining sector.

It is the Ministry of Mines, Government of India, that is organising the 4th Conference of Mining Ministers in Goa on 5 and 6 November 2026, and that has invited Mining Ministers of various States along with senior officers of the Central and State Governments.

The third national-level consultation on the draft National Technical Guidelines was held under the World Bank-assisted REWARD programme, whose expanded name is Rejuvenating Watersheds for Agricultural Resilience through Innovative Development.

The two-day consultation was organised in collaboration with this bureau and held on its campus, and its Director, Dr N.G.

Joint Secretary in the Department of Land Resources, Shri Nitin Khade, noted at the consultation that the project timeline had been brought down progressively, from seven years in the first phase of the watershed development component to five years in the second phase, and he asked for faster implementation within…

Dr Chandra Sekhar Kumar, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Rainfed Area Authority, called for a harmonised Decision Support System at the national level that takes in the best features of the systems built by Odisha and Karnataka, so that watershed planning across States becomes integrated.

Its authorities informed the National Human Rights Commission that a separate Gender-Neutral Cell had been established for persons with diverse gender identities and expressions, so as to protect their dignity and give them appropriate living arrangements, and that affirmative clothing had also been permitted for those housed there.

That officer visited the prison on 8 October 2026 and, during the visit, stressed the implementation of the advisories of the Commission and of the Ministry of Home Affairs for the welfare of transgender persons.

The prison authorities permitted it for the persons accommodated in the Gender-Neutral Cell, and the National Human Rights Commission treated this, along with the cell itself, as compliance with the recommendation made after the Special Monitor's visit on 8 October 2026.

The Union Cabinet cleared the CAPEX Support Scheme to Promote Critical Mineral Processing on 4 November 2026 with exactly this outlay, spread over five financial years running from FY 2026-27 to FY 2030-31, and funded wholly from budgetary support.

The scheme funds four plants in all, two for lithium with a capacity of at least 30 kt each and two for nickel with a capacity of at least 50 kt each.

The scheme has a three-tier governance structure. At the apex sits the Governing Council, chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Mines, which gives strategic guidance, reviews progress, makes the final selection of beneficiaries and sanctions the capital support; it may also approve changes to the scheme guidelines with the Union…

On that date gold hallmarking stopped being optional and became compulsory, at first in 256 districts; as more assaying and hallmarking centres came up, the requirement now extends to 392 districts.

The Hallmark Unique Identification, or HUID, is a six-digit alphanumeric code generated by the Bureau of Indian Standards server for each article once it has been tested at a recognised assaying and hallmarking centre.

This standard sets out the caratages in which gold jewellery may be hallmarked, with fineness expressed in parts per thousand: 9K at 375, 14K at 585, 18K at 750, 20K at 833, 22K at 916, 23K at 958 and 24KS at 995, which is seven grades in all.

It secured the top position in the category of Maximum Buildings Solarized by Central Ministries and Departments under PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, and Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan handed over the award at the Renewable Energy Summit and Expo 2026 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.

These are the two capacity figures to carry for this story: the railways has commissioned 351 MW of rooftop solar, while the goal it has set itself is 424 MW, so a little over four-fifths of the target is in place.

The award went to the Ministry of Railways for topping the category of Maximum Buildings Solarized by Central Ministries and Departments under PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

Awantipora lies in the Kashmir valley, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences being built there is meant to widen access to tertiary and specialised care in the union territory as well as strengthen medical education in the region.

Procurement approval has been conveyed for 180 medical equipment items of this value, and Notices of Award have already gone out for 140 of those items, which leaves forty still to be awarded.

The ministry has approved the engagement of essential manpower for making the out-patient department and related services work, and the proposed arrangements cover six hundred and fifty-two positions across various categories.

The correct answer is Rs 21,330 crore in 824 MSMEs, of which roughly three-quarters are micro enterprises.

The SRI Fund has a two-tier design: the Mother Fund does not put money into an enterprise itself, it invests in Daughter Funds, and those funds then take equity in the enterprises.

The awareness workshop on the Self-Reliant India Fund for women-led enterprises was held under it on 4 November 2026 at Kartavya Bhawan 3 in New Delhi, chaired by Secretary (MSME) Shri Bharat Khera, and brought together over sixty women entrepreneurs with officials, industry associations and the Daughter Funds.

The Inter-Ministerial Group on asset monetisation is chaired by that officer, while the Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications, named in option C, is its co-chair; a candidate who remembers only that both departments are involved can easily swap the two roles.

The National Land Monetization Corporation was established pursuant to an announcement made in that budget, and it has since become the government's specialised institution for monetising surplus land and other non-core assets.

The National Land Monetization Corporation is a wholly owned company of the Government of India under that department's administrative control, which is also why the Secretary of the same department chairs the Inter-Ministerial Group on asset monetisation.

Base 1, the facility of the startup Cosmoserve Space, stands at VSD Tech Park in Gachibowli, a locality of Hyderabad in Telangana, and it was opened on 5 November 2026.

Dr Jitendra Singh announced a vision of debris-free space by 2030 while inaugurating Base 1, adding that India's growing strength in active debris removal shows its leadership in space technology and its concern for a safe orbital environment for all of humanity.

The Minister said India's space economy has grown to nearly USD 9 billion and is projected to reach USD 40-45 billion in the coming decade.

The ship is an indigenously built guided missile stealth frigate belonging to the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy, and it berthed at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan on 4 November 2026 for the multilateral naval exercise MALABAR 2026.

MALABAR brings these four navies together so that the participating maritime forces can sharpen operational coordination, strengthen interoperability and exchange professional expertise through engagements held in harbour and then at sea.

The Ministry of Defence stated that the participation of INS Sahyadri in MALABAR 2026 is in consonance with the MAHASAGAR vision, under which India frames its maritime engagement with partner countries.

Union Minister Pralhad Joshi described the summit as the largest renewable energy event hosted in India, and gave this figure for its footfall and reach at the valedictory session in New Delhi on 5 November 2026.

Addressing the closing ceremony of the summit, Pralhad Joshi said the renewable energy sector had drawn more than this amount in the past decade, and that nearly Rs 6 lakh crore of it had flowed in during just the last two years, which shows how sharply the pace has picked…

Both were held within the summit, which the Union Minister called the biggest renewable energy event India has hosted. The programme also featured the Watts Next forum, which brought innovators together, and the Next Terawatt Ministerial Plenary, which took up integrated energy planning, resilient infrastructure, storage and financing.

The Prime Minister said that in 2014 the country had just 248 km of Metro lines, and that these lines ran in only five cities.

The Prime Minister said the Metro network now covers nearly 1,200 km across 26 cities, compared with 248 km across just five cities in 2014.

The Prime Minister opened his remarks with a question, asking how long a city like Pune would have had to wait for a Metro if the network had gone on growing at the speed it managed before 2014.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India tested mobile network quality in these two cities and the areas adjoining them, all of which lie within the Haryana Licensed Service Area, and released the findings for the information of telecom consumers.

The appointed agency drove this distance within the cities, added a walk test of 1.8 km and tested at 6 hotspot locations, all between 13 and 15 July 2026 in the Haryana Licensed Service Area.

In Palwal district the average download speed measured 212.03 Mbps for RJIL, against 105.00 Mbps for Airtel, 40.70 Mbps for VIL and 13.92 Mbps for BSNL, so RJIL stood clearly at the top.

The Department of Health and Family Welfare reached 100 per cent of the targets set for it under Special Campaign 6, which ran over that month with a focus on making cleanliness an institutional habit, reducing pendency and improving administrative efficiency across government offices.

The Department disposed of that many public grievances during the campaign, and alongside them it cleared 6,026 related appeals. It also addressed 119 references received from Members of Parliament and simplified 19 rules and processes.

The space was freed mainly through the records management exercise, in which 1,20,115 of the 1,25,114 physical files reviewed were weeded out and 32,542 of the 37,481 e-files reviewed were closed.