Murthy, who currently is the top Indian-American advisor to President-elect Joe Biden on COVID-19, is a potential pick for the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services and Stanford University Professor Arun Majumdar for the post of Secretary of Energy, The Washington Post and Politico said in their reports on Tuesday that mentions a list of potential picks for various Cabinet-level positions in the Biden administration.

The United States has announced to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 each by January 15 next year, which drew sharp reaction from influential lawmakers across the aisle.

According to the Biden-Harris Transition, 'the president-elect noted that he looks forward to working closely with the prime minister on shared global challenges, including containing COVID-19 and defending against future health crises, tackling the threat of climate change, launching the global economic recovery, strengthening democracy at home and abroad, and maintaining a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region'.

Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.

'Maybe it was its (India's) sheer size, with one-sixth of the world's population, an estimated two thousand distinct ethnic groups, and more than seven hundred languages spoken,' Obama writes on his fascination of India in his latest book A Promised Land.

Obama, in an interview to CBS News on Sunday, said that they have to work with the media and the tech companies to find ways to inform the public better about the issues and bolster the standards to ensure that they can separate truth from fiction.

In a joint statement, Biden and Harris wished a happy Diwali to everyone celebrating the festival of lights across the US, India and the world.

"I'm more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humouring him in this fashion," Obama told CBS News in an interview.

The executive order, which was signed by Trump on Thursday, prohibits certain purchases involving publicly traded securities or any securities that are derivative of or are designed to provide investment exposure to such securities of any Communist Chinese military company.

Pakistan's close ties with China and its lack of democracy and disregard for human rights will not be overlooked, said Haqqani, who currently is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington.

In addition to supporting the president-elect, Klain will work to build a diverse, experienced and talented team to help President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris meet the urgent challenges facing the country, a media release said.

With the margin being so close, there is a need to recount, Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said. Trump has alleged there has been massive voter fraud and electoral malpractice.

He has refused to concede the election, while the mainstream US media has declared 77-year-old Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as the winner, who is now the President-elect.

The new appointment from the Pentagon comes a day after Trump fired Defence Secretary Mark Esper and designated the National Counter Terrorism Center Director, Chris Miller, as the Acting Secretary of Defence.

Responding to questions from reporters on Trump not conceding the race, Biden hoped that at the end it's all going to come to fruition on January 20th.

The world is watching what's taking place here. We're going to count all the votes, Pompeo said.

Outgoing US President Donald Trump has declined to concede the closely-fought November 3 presidential race to Democrat Biden and is mounting legal fights in several key battleground states, but there has been no evidence of voter irregularities or widespread fraud in the election -- billed as one of the most divisive and bitter in recent American history.

Alleging that the order made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was unconstitutional, the attorney generals said the state overstepped its constitutional authority in accepting late ballots and violated the election clauses of the Constitution and that voting by mail creates voter fraud risks.

Trump's firing comes days after Esper in an interview told The Military Times that he was not a "yes man" for the president.

Trump had said that he worked on removing a large number of bureaucratic obstacles to fast-track development and approval of a vaccine.