Current Affairs 13 November 2026: TB, NBS & Defence

13 November 2026 | Reading time: 8–10 minutes | Coverage: official releases available through 12 November

Today’s exam-relevant developments span public health, fertiliser policy, defence heritage, pension technology and international cooperation. Rather than treat each announcement as an isolated headline, this edition explains the underlying institutions and concepts candidates are expected to understand. Dates and figures below are drawn from official releases; where a programme number is reported by a ministry, it is identified as such.

1. India’s TB mortality falls 38%: WHO report and national programme

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on 12 November highlighted the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2026, reporting a 38% decline in India’s estimated TB mortality from 2015 to 2025 and 94% treatment success for drug-susceptible TB. PIB also cited more than 25 crore people covered under TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, 11 crore+ chest X-rays and 3 crore molecular tests. Intensified screening detected 48.64 lakh cases, including 14.97 lakh asymptomatic cases.

The important distinction for prelims is between mortality (deaths), incidence (new cases over time), prevalence (existing cases) and treatment success (outcome of a defined treatment cohort). India’s programme is the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP); patient support includes Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana and Ni-kshay Mitra. The 2025 national prevalence survey conducted by ICMR–NIRT has been shared with WHO and is under technical discussion.

Exam lens: SDG 3, WHO, ICMR, public-health surveillance, community participation and social determinants of health. Read the detailed explainer: India TB Elimination Progress 2026.

2. Rabi 2026–27 Nutrient-Based Subsidy: ₹62,370.02 crore outlay

The Union Cabinet approved Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) rates for phosphatic and potassic fertilisers for Rabi 2026–27, applicable from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027. The tentative budget requirement is ₹62,370.02 crore, compared with ₹37,952.29 crore for Rabi 2025–26—a rise of ₹24,417.73 crore. The government says the decision is intended to support affordable fertiliser availability and rationalise subsidy in view of international input prices.

NBS has operated since 1 April 2010. Subsidy is linked to nutrient content rather than being a uniform product-level amount. The scheme covers 28 grades of P&K fertilisers, including DAP and NPKS grades. Fertiliser companies receive notified subsidy rates; the P&K sector is under a decontrolled regime, with manufacturers/importers setting MRPs subject to government oversight. Special arrangements continue for DAP at ₹1,350 per 50-kg bag, along with specified provisions for TSP, MAP, SSP freight and ammonium sulphate.

Static link: N, P, K and S stand for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur. Urea is not part of the NBS P&K basket. The policy question is balanced nutrient use and soil health—not simply subsidy expenditure.

3. Digital Life Certificate Campaign 5.0: 20.48 lakh defence pensioners

The Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), Ministry of Defence, is participating in the nationwide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign 5.0, coordinated by the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare. The month-long campaign runs from 1 to 30 November 2026. PIB reported that 20.48 lakh defence pensioners had submitted DLCs by 11 November, the highest contribution among participating departments.

A Digital Life Certificate is an electronic proof that a pensioner is alive, used to support continued pension disbursement without the conventional physical appearance process. Technology-enabled verification can reduce travel and administrative friction, particularly for elderly or mobility-constrained pensioners. It does not remove the need to follow the pension authority’s identity, authentication and exception-handling rules.

Exam lens: CGDA, Ministry of Defence, DoPPW, digital governance, pension administration and assisted service delivery. Source: PIB – DLC Campaign 5.0.

4. Revamped Gallantry Awards portal and Veer Gatha

Minister of State for Defence Shri Sanjay Seth launched the redesigned Gallantry Awards portal on 12 November. It includes Awardees, Warpedia, Gallantrypedia, Events, Memorials and Museums, Media and an interactive Tribute section. Veer Gatha is a student-oriented space hosted on the portal. PIB says the initiative grew from about 8 lakh students and 4,788 schools in its first edition to more than 1.92 crore students and 1.9 lakh schools in its fifth edition, including 28,005 students from 91 CBSE schools in 18 countries.

Remember the hierarchy: Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra are wartime gallantry awards; Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra are peacetime gallantry awards. The highest wartime award is PVC; the highest peacetime award is Ashoka Chakra. The portal is useful for source-based study of citations and military history.

Read: Gallantry Awards Portal Revamped 2026 | Official portal.

5. Defence readiness: jointness, technology and maritime exercises

Recent Ministry of Defence releases underline three recurring themes: jointness among services, technological superiority and maritime domain awareness. The Air Force Commanders’ Conference highlighted surprise, technology and jointness as factors in operational readiness. Separately, the Indian Navy and Royal Navy of Oman conducted the 15th edition of bilateral exercise Naseem Al Bahr (Sea Breeze); India–Myanmar Naval Exercise IMNEX-26 commenced at Visakhapatnam; and the Navy is coordinating Sea Vigil-26, a pan-India coastal defence exercise.

These are not interchangeable activities. A bilateral naval exercise builds interoperability between two navies; a coastal security exercise tests coordination among maritime and state agencies; a commanders’ conference is a professional deliberative forum. For objective questions, retain exercise name, participating countries/forces, edition and location from the official release.

Static GK: Visakhapatnam is in Andhra Pradesh and hosts major naval facilities; the Indian Navy’s headquarters is in New Delhi. The Indian Navy is one of the three services under the Ministry of Defence.

6. National and international snapshot

India–Philippines engagement: PIB’s 12 November release covered the Prime Minister’s visit to Manila, Philippines. In country-based questions, remember the Philippines’ capital is Manila and currency is the Philippine peso. President and Prime Minister titles should be checked against the official diplomatic page at the time of the event rather than copied from old notes.

India International Trade Fair: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal was scheduled to inaugurate the 45th India International Trade Fair on 13 November. The fair is an important platform for trade promotion, MSMEs, state participation and consumer products. Candidates should distinguish the organiser and venue details from general trade policy facts when revising.

Health and regional cooperation: the first BIMSTEC Health Ministers’ Meeting in Colombo adopted a joint ministerial statement, reflecting regional cooperation on public health. BIMSTEC connects Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand around the Bay of Bengal; its Secretariat is in Dhaka.

7. Recruitment, results and admit-card desk

For time-sensitive candidate notices, we have retained separate WordPress categories: Job Notification, Results and Admit Card. The latest verified entries already on the site include UPSC CSE Mains 2026 written result and DAF-II dates (11–25 November), Nagaland N-TET exam-centre information for the 21 November examination, IBPS RRB Officer Scale-I prelims call-letter guidance for 21–22 November, and Northern Railway Apprentice applications for 4,651 slots. These are existing posts, not newly announced vacancies today; do not treat them as fresh merely because they remain open.

As of this editorial cutoff, I did not identify a clearly verified new 13 November national recruitment/result/admit-card notice from the official sources searched that warranted a separate standalone update. A date-sensitive update should only be published after checking the issuing authority’s notice/PDF, application or exam dates, vacancy/shortlist count and direct official link. This avoids stale “latest jobs” pages and false urgency.

8. Quick revision table

Topic	Figure / fact	Exam connection
TB	38% mortality decline; 94% treatment success	SDG 3, NTEP, WHO
NBS	₹62,370.02 crore; 1 Oct 2026–31 Mar 2027	Fertiliser subsidy, P-K nutrients
DLC 5.0	20.48 lakh defence DLC by 11 Nov	CGDA, pension, digital governance
Gallantry	PVC highest wartime; Ashoka Chakra highest peacetime	Defence GK
Veer Gatha	1.92 crore+ students in fifth edition	Military heritage, education
BIMSTEC	7 member states; Secretariat Dhaka	Regional organisations

9. Possible MCQ areas

NTEP is associated with which disease? Tuberculosis.
Which nutrient-based subsidy covers P&K fertilisers? NBS.
Which body administers defence accounts? CGDA.
Which is the highest wartime gallantry award? Param Vir Chakra.
Which country hosted the first BIMSTEC Health Ministers’ Meeting cited above? Sri Lanka (Colombo).
What is the capital and currency of the Philippines? Manila; Philippine peso.

Official sources and related study pages

Editorial standard: official release figures are attributed, event and target dates are not conflated, and the recruitment desk differentiates active older notices from genuinely new announcements.