After an acrimonious and violent presidential race, unseen in American electoral history, and watched by a deeply apprehensive world like never before, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris as the first female, first Black and first South Asian Vice-President on Wednesday at the 59th inaugural ceremony at the West Front of the Capitol, the parliament house. While Biden's prayers were granted by his Lord, Harris got her reward. And, marking an auspicious beginning to the new presidential term, it snowed like a shower of petals from the heavens even as the participants were getting set to start under the shadow of an all-pervading fear struck by an unpredictable Donald Trump, who boycotted the function and left the city early in the morning.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice- President-elect Kamala Harris were sworn in at the US Capitol on Wednesday according to the convention and without any adverse events that was feared in the background of the January 6 violence inspired by the then President Donald Trump who had lost the November 3 presidential election.

Harris made history as the first female, first Black and first South Asian by descent to become the Vice-President.

Soon after reaching the White House after the elaborate ceremonies and other traditional formalities, the 46th President signed quite a few executive orders, revoking several of Trump's policies. Wearing of face mask has been made mandatory on federal property. Trump's earlier order withdrawing from the Paris accord has been revoked. So also a presidential permit for the Keystone XL oil and gas pipeline is being revoked. Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries is also lifted. The national emergency for building Mexican border is also over. He will also order to rework on Obama's pet Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which Trump halted. There are 700,000 people enrolled as DACA. All student loans repayments are halted. There will be a bar on evictions until at least March 31. People could stay in their homes.

In the next ten days, Biden is expected to roll back many more of Trump's policies and orders. The coronavirus pandemic, job crisis, immigration and climate change are the issues top on Biden's agenda. A new Bill on regularising illegal immigrants is ready. There are 11 million immigrants who have no legal status, including documented and undocumented, who will now get a 5-year green card and later two-year citizenship. Scrapping the per country cap on H-1B visas that will help mostly Indians is also under way.

Talking to reporters after signing the executive orders, the new President said Trump had left a letter for him - the only tradition the outgoing President followed even as he boycotted the inaugural function - "a very generous letter." He did not disclose the contents.

The President swore in about 1,000 federal political appointees through video conferencing. He reminded them, “we work for the people”, and called upon them to be “decent, honourable and smart.” He stressed on one American value: "humility and trust." "If you ever work with me and I hear you another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I will fire you on the spot. No ifs, ands or buts."

Kamala Harris talked about the power of “American aspiration” in her first speech to the nation as Vice-President. She ceremoniously entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the Vice-President’s office, near the White House. The Vice-President’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C, is under repair. However, she has a house of her own in the city.

Meanwhile, the Senate has fast-tracked and voted by 84-10 confirmation of Avril Haines as the new Director of National Intelligence. He is the first member of Biden Cabinet.

Three new Democratic Senators were sworn in by Vice- President Kamala Harris. The Democrats (50:50) now have control of the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade.

Five people were arrested from a banquet hall in Sector 51 Noida on Thursday where they were called to hold a rave party in a trap laid by the animal rights group, PFA. They named Yadav but he was not present.

Betting through Dubai-based Mahadev Book in India is conducted through a countrywide network. Probes reveal that the online gambling is worth several millions and top politicians, officials and celebs have been beneficiaries.

TAILPIECE: Polling dates for some States are round the corner. Top politicians have begun their acrimonious debate who looted more, even as Mahadev is washing their dirty laundry in the open ghat. Come what may, one needs to seize power to amass "thy wretched pelf!" One simple question is, why else one should spend lakhs or crores to get elected! A question every Indian should ask to oneself at least once a day!

His inaction amounts to defeating the rights of the people of the State to welfare measures sought to be implemented through the Bills, the Kerala Government's petition submitted, while the State of Tamil Nadu remarked that its "Governor is acting as a political rival."

Tailpiece: Coming up back to back, the petitions in their totality seem to question the provision of Raj Bhavan, and not motives of a Governor as a person.

Hundreds of cars piled up behind the wreckage of crashes occurring one after other in backing up - continuous crashes to the rhythm of metallic clanks and bangs back to back. According to reports, some ops required 'Jaws of Life' to pull apart the mangled cars to save lives inside.

The pilots struggled with Emerson to thwart a shut-off as he reached for the T-handles (see pix). Later he admitted to police he had taken psychedelic mushrooms and had a "nervous breakdown."

Doctors reasoned how the incidence of heart attacks is spiking over time and advise the simple way to play safely is to take a break and rehydrate yourself.

But how come ten people, including children, die of cardiac arrest at Garba in 24 hours, and that at different places of Gujarat? Garba had been going on for six days, and every year it is celebrated.

The killing of a teacher in France by an Islamic radical last Friday is linked to the Israel-Hamas war in West Asia, say authorities.

Shocking news from the UK: Leading grocers have started bribing policemen with free food and drinks to persuade them to take action against shoplifters.

Shoplifting has risen by about 27 per cent in 10 major cities across the UK this year. The cost of retail crime last year was $2.15 billion. Besides, “We are seeing organised gangs threatening staff with weapons and emptying stores," Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said. Data shows that the police failed to respond to 73 per cent of serious retail crimes that included assault and abuse of workers, apart from shoplifting.

Isar Mohammad allegedly picked up a banana offered to Ganesh idol on Chaturthi at a makeshift temple in Delhi and consumed it.

Harris said hip-hop is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every aspect of American popular culture.” “Hip-hop culture is American culture,” she said in a talk at her official residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

The social media had mixed reaction. There was much appreciation that she dances better than any VP in American history. But some called her "moves" as “cringe” while others did not like her pink pants - "pink pants don’t look good.” In fact, her ensembles have always been incongruous.

"Let’s see how the (Governor's) Vice-Chancellors are given salary." Mamata's extreme statements will put the Marxist Government in Kerala, which is also facing similar issues, to shame. Has she begun the countdown for a war on the streets?

It's true Mamata has come to see a conspiracy to demolish the established systems across the country, but lacks the ability to foresee what exactly is being pushed.

Brandishing a sword, Mahant Paramhans told reporters on Tuesday he himself will behead MK Stalin's son for his remarks against Sanatan Dharma in case nobody came forward to accept his offer he made in his video. Udhayanidhi reacted to the saint's Monday video, "I will speak more. I am the grandson of the artist who put his head on the rail track for Tamil Nadu."

Somanath elaborated, "I am an explorer. I explore the Moon. I explore the inner space. So it's a part of the journey of my life to explore both science and spirituality. So I visit many temples and I read many scriptures. So try to find the meaning of our existence and our journey in this cosmos. So it's a part of the culture that we are all built to explore, find out the inner self as well as outer self. So for the outer, I do science, for the inner I come to temples." (See videos)

Rao the mathematical legend had fathered the path-breaking Rao-Blackwell theorem, one of the most important theorems in mathematical statistics, at the age of 25. That brought him global fame. He is also famous for his Cramér-Rao Bound inequality theorem relating to quality of estimators in statistics which has had a profound bearing on applications of modern economics and several other diverse fields. Simply put, with the pioneering statistician computation became a tool to analyse even socio-economic challenges of modern times.

The alleged incident has received such a flash publicity that a standardised city's hugely middle class population will have second thoughts about eating outside for some time. Now everything on the table looks suspicious!

“All subjects directly connected to the people should be shifted to the State List. Particularly the subject of education. Only if this is done can cruel exams like NEET be abolished,” Stalin said. Education was moved from the State List to the Concurrent List with the 42nd Constitution Amendment made by the Central Government in 1976.

Decentralisation has been at the core of Tamil politics since the times of CN Annadurai. Stalin indicated there will be political changes in the offing.

TAILPIECE: While the Centre and the States are at loggerheads, it takes a different cognitive acumen to know that entrance tests are not the way for students' admission to courses.

As recently as Tuesday Craig Robertson had posted on Facebook: "Perhaps Utah will become famous this week as the place a sniper took out Biden the Marxist." Biden was scheduled to make his first visit to Utah as President Wednesday afternoon.

Maruti is recalling 87,599 S-Presso and Eeco vehicles to inspect and possibly replace parts in the steering system. All reputed companies around the world do recall their products when a defect comes to light.

Meanwhile, a question arises why just in about a year so many accidents have taken place involving Mercedes sent to India while the car has won safety awards abroad? In most cases, the vehicle collided with divider, while manoeuvring a turn. Was there a split second delay in the steering system coming to a grip when at high speed? Did anybody in India bother to study a pattern in several of these accidents that took place one after other?

Former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry died when his Mercedes-Benz-SUV hit a divider in Gujarat. Cricketer Rishabh Pant's Mercedes-Benz-SUV rammed a divider in Uttarakhand and smashed. It went up in flames but he escaped with injuries. Brother of PM Narendra Modi, Prahlad Modi's Mercedes-Benz-SUV met with a similar accident in Mysuru. And many more.

• Experts blame violation of the Visual Flying Rules (VFR) for most of the chopper crashes in the mountains as the leading cause. VFR means fly only visually - because of the lack of navigation aids in remote areas or unreliability of GPS-like aids in hilly terrains or a remote manipulation of instruments in cases of sabotage - as the topography plays havoc especially in the monsoon (mid-June to September).
• Even when VFR is followed, most crashes occur due to CFIT (Controlled Flight into Terrain) - that is, everything else is OK but the aircraft collides with hills or trees hidden by the clouds. This also occurs mostly in the monsoon.
• On Tueday with Manang, the chopper was brand new, pilot was highly experienced. But it hit an 'invisible' tree and then crashed against a hillside. This CFIT occurred when the pilot tried to dodge patches of clouds even as he was following the VFR.
• Simply put, everyone knows flying in the hills during the monsoon is risky, but the companies want to make more money in any which case. This type of tragedy is very frequently invited in the Indian hill State of Uttarakhand as well, where pilots are even made to fly without the mandatory rest.