Latest news with #2025Index
Time of India
24-07-2025
- Time of India
Crime Index 2025: Which are the safest Indian cities? Check full list
Representative image Ahmedabad has emerged as the safest city in India in 2025, out of the 12 named in the latest 2025 Numbeo Crime Index, a global crowd-sourced database. With a Safety Index score of 68.6, Ahmedabad ranks 77th out of 279 cities globally, topping the list among Indian cities. The 2025 Index by Numbeo evaluates cities based on survey responses about crime perception, safety during day and night, and concerns related to property and violent crimes. A ccording to the list, Jaipur followed Ahmedabad with a global rank of 96 (Safety Index: 65.2), while Coimbatore came in at 112 (Safety Index: 62.0). Chennai (123), Pune (129), and Hyderabad (139) also featured in the top half of the rankings. Other Indian cities in Numbeo's 2025 Global Safety and Crime Index: Chennai – Rank 123 (Safety Index: 60.3) (Crime Index: 39.7 ) Pune – Rank 129 (Safety Index: 58.7) (Crime Index: 41.3) Hyderabad – Rank 139 (Safety Index: 57.3) (Crime Index: 42.7 ) Mumbai – Rank 145 (Safety Index: 55.9) (Crime Index: 55.9) Kolkata – Rank 166 (Safety Index: 53.3) (Crime Index: 46.7) Several major Indian metros appeared lower on the list: Gurugram – Rank 209 (Safety Index: 46.0) (Crime Index: 54.0) Bengaluru – Rank 211 (Safety Index: 45.7) (Crime Index: 54.3) Noida – Rank 214 (Safety Index: 44.9) (Crime Index: 55.1) Delhi – Rank 234 (Safety Index: 41.0) (Crime Index: 59.0) On the global stage, Abu Dhabi retained its title as the safest city in the world, with a Safety Index of 88.8. The UAE capital has topped the list for the ninth consecutive year. The United Arab Emirates also ranked as the second safest country, just behind Andorra, which took the top spot. Numbeo's Safety Index is calculated based on user-submitted surveys on its website, which gather public perception on various safety-related aspects. These include the overall level of crime, how safe people feel during the day and at night, and the perceived risk of specific crimes such as theft, assault, vandalism, and hate-motivated incidents. A higher Safety Index indicates lower perceived crime and a higher sense of security, making it an important indicator for residents, tourists, and policymakers when assessing a city's safety.
Techday NZ
17-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Record investment & policy headline Stanford's AI report
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence has accelerated to historic highs, with breakthroughs in technical capabilities, adoption across sectors, and global governance, according to the latest Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025 from Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centreed Artificial Intelligence (HAI). The eighth edition of the report describes 2024 as a pivotal year, marked by "unprecedented" leaps in AI performance, new records in private investment, and intensifying government involvement. "The 2025 Index is our most comprehensive to date and arrives at an important moment, as AI's influence across society, the economy, and global governance continues to intensify," write co-directors Yolanda Gil and Raymond Perrault in their introduction. "AI is no longer just a story of what's possible - it's a story of what's happening now and how we are collectively shaping the future of humanity." Record growth in performance and usage AI models continue to outperform previous benchmarks at a rapid rate. In the past year alone, performance rose by 18.8 percentage points on the MMMU benchmark, 48.9 points on GPQA, and 67.3 points on the SWE-bench, which tests advanced coding tasks. The report finds that "AI systems made major strides in generating high-quality video, and in some settings, language model agents even outperformed humans in programming tasks with limited time budgets." AI is also increasingly present in everyday life, particularly in healthcare and transportation. In 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration approved 223 AI-enabled medical devices, up from just six in 2015. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicle usage has scaled up: "Waymo, one of the largest US operators, provides over 150,000 autonomous rides each week, while Baidu's affordable Apollo Go robotaxi fleet now serves numerous cities across China." Investment and industry adoption surge Private investment in AI hit new highs in 2024. According to the report, "US private AI investment grew to $109.1 billion - nearly 12 times China's $9.3 billion and 24 times the UK's $4.5 billion. Generative AI saw particularly strong momentum, attracting $33.9 billion globally in private investment - an 18.7% increase from 2023." Business adoption of AI is also accelerating: "78% of organisations reported using AI in 2024, up from 55% the year before." The report cites research showing that "AI boosts productivity and, in most cases, helps narrow skill gaps across the workforce." The sector has experienced "dramatic expansion over the past decade, with total investment growing more than thirteenfold since 2014." Global leadership and competition While the US remains the leader in producing top AI models, China is rapidly closing the performance gap. In 2024, US-based institutions produced 40 notable AI models, compared to China's 15. However, "Chinese models have rapidly closed the quality gap: performance differences on major benchmarks such as MMLU and HumanEval shrank from double digits in 2023 to near parity in 2024," the report finds. China also leads in the number of AI research publications and patents, accounting for 69.7% of all AI patent grants in 2023. "Between 2010 and 2023, the number of AI patents has grown steadily and significantly, ballooning from 3,833 to 122,511. In just the last year, the number of AI patents has risen 29.6%," the authors note. Policy, regulation and public attitudes Governments are stepping up both investment and regulation. In 2024, US federal agencies introduced 59 AI-related regulations, more than double the number in 2023. Canada, China, France, India, and Saudi Arabia all announced major national AI investment packages, ranging from $1.25 billion to $100 billion. "Legislative mentions of AI rose 21.3% across 75 countries since 2023, marking a ninefold increase since 2016," the report states. Despite the optimism, trust and bias remain challenges. The report finds "fewer people believe AI companies will safeguard their data, and concerns about fairness and bias persist. Misinformation continues to pose risks, particularly in elections and the proliferation of deepfakes." In response, governments and international organisations are "advancing new regulatory frameworks aimed at promoting transparency, accountability, and fairness." A global survey in 2024 found notable regional divides in public optimism about AI. In China, Indonesia, and Thailand, more than 75% of respondents viewed AI as more beneficial than harmful, compared to just 40% in Canada and 39% in the United States. Still, optimism is rising: "Since 2022, optimism has grown significantly in several previously sceptical countries, including Germany (+10%), France (+10%), Canada (+8%), Great Britain (+8%), and the United States (+4%)." The path forward Looking ahead, the AI Index calls for continued vigilance, collaboration and data-driven policymaking. "In a world where AI is discussed everywhere - from boardrooms to kitchen tables - this mission has never been more essential," write the co-directors. "Longitudinal tracking remains at the heart of our mission. In a domain advancing at breakneck speed, the Index provides essential context - helping us understand where AI stands today, how it got here, and where it may be headed next."
Forbes
17-06-2025
- Health
- Forbes
The Best Cities To Live In, According To The Global Liveability Index
The release of the 2025 Global Liveability Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has seen a new city take the crown as the world's most liveable. After three years at the top of the rankings, Austria's capital Vienna has finally been usurped by Denmark's capital city, Copenhagen. Welcome to the world's best city to live in. Copenhagen achieved near perfect scores across the board. The EIU's annual index assesses 173 locations around the world, ranking their liveability based on a variety of indicators and criteria. This ranking attempts to quantify the challenges someone might face to their lifestyle in any of the given locations, to help assess which offer the best and worst living conditions. Each city is measured across 30+ qualitative and quantitative factors in five categories described as stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Qualitative factors are decided by a panel of expert EIU analysts and in-city contributors. Quantitative factors are based on the relative performance of a range of external data points. Each factor is then assigned a rating as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. The EIU Index then assigns a score to each category, which are compiled and weighted to create an easy reference 1-100 score, where 1 is intolerable and 100 is ideal. Copenhagen has been crowned the world's most comfortable city to live in 2025, earning perfect scores for stability, education and infrastructure. Its overall Index score reached 98 of a possible 100. Although Vienna has lost the top spot, it remains one of the great cities to live in—or just to visit. It beats the longstanding leader, Vienna, into second place, although the Austrian capital also scored perfectly for education and infrastructure, as well as healthcare. Vienna shares second this year with Zurich, which ranked perfectly in both the education and healthcare categories. Another Swiss city, Geneva, ranked fifth overall, showcasing the dominance of Western European cities in the index with four of the top five positions. The only city to break that European grip is Melbourne in Australia, which takes fourth spot with an overall score of 97 out of 100. The Southern Hemisphere comes into its own for the remaining top ten places with Australia's Sydney and Adelaide in sixth and ninth places respectively, Osaka in Japan in seventh and Auckland in New Zealand in eighth. Just sneaking into the top is North America's sole representative, Vancouver. London remains the UK's most liveable city but has dropped out of the top 50 globally. While Western European cities dominate the Index, it's notable that all the UK cities covered—London, Manchester and Edinburgh—have dropped down the rankings and sit well outside the top ten. This is due to a combination of political instability and growing civil unrest that has impacted scores. In 2025, London dropped from 45th to 54th place, Manchester from 43rd to 52nd and Edinburgh from 59th to 64th. The reason for Vienna's fall from the top spot comes down to its declining stability score, impacted by a variety of factors including terrorism scares, one of which saw Taylor Swift's summer 2024 concert canceled. The 2025 Global Liveability Index Top 10 Deputy industry director at EIU, Barsali Bhattacharyya commented, 'Global liveability has remained flat over the past year, and as in 2024, scores for stability have declined at a global level. Pressure on stability has led Vienna to lose its position as the most liveable city after a three-year stint. As in 2024, stability scores have declined for western Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. In this edition, they have also declined for Asia, amid intensified threats of military conflict for cities in India and Taiwan.' While the average overall liveability score across the Index was consistent with 2024 at 76.1 out of 100, stability scores fell by 0.2 points overall. This comes amid huge global geopolitical tensions, civil unrest and a growing global housing crisis. Conversely, the Index has also seen overall gains in scores for healthcare, education and infrastructure. There have been some very notable movements both up and down the Index in 2025. Canadian cities in particular have suffered, with Calgary dropping from fifth place in 2024 to 18th place in 2025 after a marked drop in its healthcare score. This has impacted all four Canadian cities in the Index after the well-publicized strain on the country's healthcare system thanks to a shortage of staff, among other factors. Toronto saw its ranking drop from 12th to 16th. While those numbers don't look great, it's still important to look at them in context. Alongside the other 20 North America cities ranked, all reported the highest possible tier of liveability according to the Index's criteria, scoring above 80 out of 100. The highest U.S. city on the list was Honolulu in Hawaii, which ranked 23rd overall. Improvements in healthcare and education have seen Middle Eastern cities like Al Khobar great improve liveability scores. Moving up the Index, Al Khobar in Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf saw the biggest leap, climbing 13 places from 148th to 135th thanks to improved healthcare and education. This reflects a trend across regions in the Middle East and North Africa, which saw the most significant global gains in overall liveability, largely driven by advancements in healthcare and education within cities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Propping up the Index once again is war torn Damascus in Syria, which has seen no improvement in its liveability score despite the fall of ex-president Bashar al-Assad and subsequent regime change in December 2024. While this should increase its potential for improvement dramatically, the legacy of a years-long civil war will realistically take years to recover from. Despite a regime change, years of civil war have left Damascus rooted to the bottom of the Global Liveability Index. This is reflected in the significant jump to the second and third worst ranked cities, Tripoli in Libya and Dhakar in Bangladesh.
Business Wire
05-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Insure.com's 2025 Mother's Day Index: Mom's Salary Hits $145,235
FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- a trusted source for expert insurance insights, has released its 15th annual Mother's Day Index, which finds that the unpaid work mothers typically perform at home would command an annual salary of $145,235 — a 4% increase from last year. What's a mom worth in 2025? According to Mother's Day Index, her unpaid work would earn $145K a year. Share 'Stay-at-home mothers juggle multiple jobs behind the scenes without compensation,' says Nupur Gambhir, a licensed life insurance agent and the managing editor at 'The Mother's Day Index is our way of recognizing some of the economic value of caregivers — their extraordinary workload would easily earn them six figures in the job market.' To compile the Mother's Day Index, the editorial team uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) wage information to assign an hourly rate to jobs primary caregivers typically perform around the home, such as cooking meals, helping with homework and providing emotional support. The team then estimates the number of hours each task requires and calculates an annual salary. Highlights from the 2025 Index show significant increases in compensation across several caregiving and household-related professions: Mental health counselors: 11% Community service specialists: 8% Laundry workers: 7% Bakers: 6% Gambhir is available for interviews about the Mother's Day Index or to answer consumer questions about life insurance. About is owned and operated by QuinStreet, Inc. (Nasdaq: QNST), a pioneer in delivering online marketplace solutions to match searchers with brands in digital media. QuinStreet is committed to providing consumers and businesses with the information and tools to research, find and select the products and brands that meet their needs. is a member of the company's expert research and publishing division. For 35 years, has served as a comprehensive consumer resource for insurance information, offering expert advice, articles, news, and tools about car, home, health, and life insurance. Consumers have access to free insurance quotes and guidance on finding the right insurance policy, saving money and solving claims problems.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tax season is hard enough. Inaccessible websites make it worse.
Many government and financial websites are still difficult to use for people with disabilities, especially during tax season. From confusing navigation to inaccessible forms and documents, these barriers make it hard to file taxes or manage finances independently. Tax season is often a source of stress and confusion—from navigating complicated forms to tracking down essential documents. For many Americans, the process has gone digital in recent years, with everything from tax filing to payment portals now hosted online. But for the millions of people with disabilities who rely on accessible technology to navigate the internet, tax season presents an added challenge: government and financial websites remain deeply inaccessible, making it difficult—and in some cases, impossible—to meet their financial obligations independently, AudioEye says. According to AudioEye's 2025 Digital Accessibility Index, the average government webpage contains 307 accessibility violations—one of the highest rates of any industry analyzed in the report. From unlabeled form fields to vague navigation links, these barriers can prevent users from applying for benefits, filing taxes, or accessing critical public services. Government websites frequently rely on images to convey information, including application instructions and service directories. Yet 15.3 images per page lacked alternative text (alt text), which allows people who are blind or have low vision to understand the content and purpose of images through screen readers. And with 77% of pages containing unclear links, navigating a site to find the correct tax form or deadline becomes a frustrating, if not impossible, task. "I use an online tax service, and navigating the platform is often slow and irksome," said Dave Carlson, a member of AudioEye's A11iance Community. "Not all modules work the same way, and it takes a lot of trial and error just to reach input fields and Continue buttons. After years of using it, I've figured out how to get through it—but it shouldn't be that hard." In addition to government portals, financial services websites—which host tools for direct deposits, tax refunds, and loan information—are also falling behind on accessibility. In fact, they were among the worst-performing sectors in the 2025 Index. AudioEye analyzed more than 57,000 pages across 1,500+ financial services sites and found that: 80% of pages included unclear or vague links, making it hard to locate key services like payment portals or transaction histories. The average page contained 74 violations of minimum color contrast requirements as outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), making forms and financial documents difficult to read for users with low vision. On average, there were 6.8 inaccessible forms per page—preventing users from opening accounts, transferring funds, or setting up automatic payments. "One of the biggest issues for me during tax season is getting my bank and credit card data in a usable format," Carlson continued. "Most institutions only offer PDFs, which are nearly impossible to navigate when dealing with large tables. I need spreadsheets, but getting them often means calling the institution and explaining the issue—year after year. Nothing changes, so I've just had to get smarter about workarounds." Website accessibility issues don't just create barriers for users—they also expose organizations to greater legal risk. With the Department of Justice gearing up to enforce updates to Title II of the ADA and stronger Section 508 compliance rules, both public agencies and private institutions will soon face more scrutiny regarding the accessibility of their websites. For organizations—both public and private—the takeaway is clear: Digital accessibility must be a priority. Here are a few ways to start: Audit and test regularly: Use a combination of automated scanning tools and expert testing by people with disabilities to identify and fix issues that lead to lawsuits. Prioritize accessibility in high-traffic areas: Focus on critical pages such as login portals, form submissions, and payment tools where users are most likely to encounter issues. Engage with the disability community: Invite users with disabilities to share feedback and participate in the design and QA process. Their lived experience offers insight that internal testing often misses. Fix the basics: Ensure every image has alt text, every form field has a clear label, and every link accurately describes where it goes. When essential services like tax filing, refund tracking, and benefit applications are out of reach, it creates unnecessary barriers to independence, privacy, and financial stability. Accessibility isn't just a feature to check off—it's a civil right. Achieving it requires more than automated scans or surface-level fixes. It demands a comprehensive, thoughtful approach that includes testing with real users, fixing issues at the source, and building digital experiences that work for everyone. This story was produced by AudioEye and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
