Nikolay Anatolyevich Nikiforov (russian: Никола́й Анато́льевич Ники́форов; 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 ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering a ...
Portal company. From 2006 to 2010, he headed the Center of Information Technology of
Tatarstan
The Republic of Tatarstan (russian: Республика Татарстан, Respublika Tatarstan, p=rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə tətɐrˈstan; tt-Cyrl, Татарстан Республикасы), or simply Tatarstan (russian: Татарстан, tt ...
. 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 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 local public operators ...
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 Aktsionernoye Obschestvo (AO, private limited company) , saying that modernization of the Russian Post will make it possible to deliver mail inside the country within a week. Nikiforov said the purpose of the Ministry of Communications is to ensure that all mail should be delivered within the boundaries of one large city of community within one day and that he sees several instruments of financing the postal service’s upgrade program, such as the issue of
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 priv ...
bond
Bond or bonds may refer to:
Common meanings
* Bond (finance), a type of debt security
* Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States
* Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...
s, a rise in the prices of some services, the introduction of differentiated fees for the delivery of
pension
A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
s (depending on the
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
) 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 fi ...
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 an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
products towards
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
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 (russian: Диссернет) 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 ...
, 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
21st-century Russian politicians
Government ministers of Russia
Kazan Federal University alumni
Politicians from Kazan
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Russian economists
United Russia politicians