India, Jan. 27 -- The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an advocacy group of scientists, set the timeline of their iconic 'Doomsday Clock' to '85 seconds to midnight,' indicating that the world is closer to a catastrophe than ever.

The new timeline, for which the world was eagerly waiting, was announced at a press conference by the group at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC on Friday. The 'Doomsday Clock' was established in the post-Cold War era to predict how close humanity is to total destruction. Last year, the clock was set at '87 seconds to midnight' - meaning, we have moved two seconds closer in the new timeline.

In the presser, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited a host of reasons why the cl...