Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris took oath as first woman Vice President on Wednesday in a historic but scaled down ceremony under the unprecedented security umbrella of thousands of security personnel, who transformed the Capitol into a fortress to prevent any breach by pro-Trump extremists.

Indian-origin Kamala Harris was on Wednesday sworn in as America's first woman Vice President during a historic inauguration at the West Front of the Capitol.

Donald Trump on Wednesday skipped his successor Joe Biden's inauguration and exited the White House for the last time as the US president to board a flight to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which will be his permanent home after he failed to win his re-election bid.

Joe Biden, hours after being sworn in as the 46th President, will send a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress which among other things proposes to eliminate the per country cap for employment-based green cards, a move that would benefit hundreds and thousands of Indian IT professionals in the US, whose current wait period for legal permanent residency runs into several decades.

President Donald Trump has pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon as part of a late flurry of clemency action benefiting nearly 150 people, including rap stars and former members of Congress.

China's highest-profile entrepreneur, e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, appeared on Wednesday in a video posted online, ending a 2 1/2-month disappearance from public view that prompted speculation about his status and his business empire's future.

Joe Biden, in his maiden address to the nation soon after being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, would deliver a forward-looking speech built around the theme of unity, advisors close to the President-elect said.

Four years after he left the Beltway for his hometown in Delaware, Joe Biden returned to Washington DC a day before his swearing-in as the 46th President of the United States on Wednesday with the message of unity and the enormous task of healing a bitterly divided country.