Nikolay Anatolyevich Nikiforov (; born 24 June 1982) is a Russian politician. In 2012, he became
Minister of Communications and Mass Media of Russia.
Career
At age 19, Nikiforov became deputy director of the
Kazan
Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...
Portal company. From 2006 to 2010, he headed the Center of Information Technology of
Tatarstan
Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan, sometimes also called Tataria, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Volga Federal District; and its capital city, capital and largest city i ...
. In 2010, Nikiforov became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Information and Communication of the Tatarstan Republic.
On 21 May 2012, at the age of 29, he was named as the
Minister of Communications and Mass Media in
Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet, thus becoming its youngest member.
In October 2012, Nikiforov criticized Russia's leading telecom operation,
Rostelecom
Rostelecom (Ростелеком) is Russia’s largest provider of digital services for a wide variety of consumers, households, private businesses, government and municipal authorities, and other telecom providers.
Rostelecom interconnects all ...
for failing to address "digital inequality" in the country. Nikiforov singled out Rostelecom's investment strategy, which has primarily focused on expanding its market share by acquiring other companies, as inadequate. This, Nikiforov said, means the company's energies are focused on areas that are already connected to the internet, rather than acting to expand internet access.
He pursued the modernization of the
Russian Post
Russian Post ( rus, Почта России, a=RU-Почта России.wav, ''Pochta Rossii'') is an List of legal entity types by country#Russia, Aktsionernoye Obschestvo (AO, private limited company)[infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...]
bonds, a rise in the prices of some services, the introduction of differentiated fees for the delivery of
pension
A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...
s (depending on the
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...
) and the introduction of
tax break
Tax break also known as tax preferences, tax concession, and tax relief, are a method of reduction to the tax liability of taxpayers. Government usually applies them to stimulate the economy and increase the solvency of the population. By this f ...
s. Since 27 December 2017, he is on the supervisory board of
Post Bank.
Nikiforov was responsible for the transition away from
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
iOS
Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
products towards
Samsung
Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
Android products for use as government IT tools sometime between 2010 and March 2014, when it was first noticed by journalists at a cabinet meeting. He was quoted by
AFP as saying "American special services … will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept (which) of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients. This obviously orientates Russian clients, primarily state ones, to be very choosy about their partners in IT."
Accusations of academic dishonesty
In 2011, Nikiforov defended his thesis in Economics. According to an examination by
Dissernet
Dissernet () is a volunteer community network working to clean Russian science of plagiarism. The core activity of the community is conducting examinations of doctoral and habilitation (higher doctorate) theses defended in Russian scientific and ...
, this doctoral thesis contains at least 97 pages with undocumented plagiarism from six other works and data fabrication. On 22 June 2016, the dissertation council of the
confirmed the existence of plagiarism in Nikiforov's thesis, but refused to recommend stripping Nikiforov of his degree.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nikiforov, Nikolay
1982 births
Living people
Government ministers of Russia
Kazan Federal University alumni
Politicians from Kazan
Russian economists
United Russia politicians