Dmitry Medvedev

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is the third and current President of the Russian Federation, inaugurated on 7 May 2008. He won the presidential election held on 2 March 2008 with 71.25% of the popular vote. He recently visited India and gave a new beginning to already good relations between the two countries.

 Medvedev was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government on 14 November 2005. Formerly Vladimir Putin's Chief of Presidential Staff, he was also the Chairman of Gazprom's board of directors, a post he had held for the second time since the year 2000. Medvedev's candidacy was backed by then President Vladimir Putin.

On 10 December 2007, he was informally endorsed as a candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections by the largest Russian political party, United Russia and several pro-presidential parties, and officially endorsed by United Russia on 17 December 2007. A technocrat and political appointee, Medvedev had never held elective office before 2008. As President, Medvedev has made economic modernisation one of his top agendas.

He graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987 (together with Ilya Yeliseyev, Anton Ivanov, Nikolay Vinnichenko and Konstantin Chuychenko) and in 1990, received his Candidate of Sciences degree in private law from the graduate school of the same university.

Anatoly Sobchak, an early democratic politician of the 1980s and 1990s, was one of his professors. In 1988, Medvedev joined Sobchak's team of democrats and served as the de facto head of Sobchak's successful campaign for a seat in the new Soviet parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Between 1991 and 1999, Medvedev in addition to his business activities and participation in the Saint Petersburg City Administration, held a position of docent at his alma mater university, now renamed to Saint Petersburg State University.

From 1991 to 1996, Medvedev worked as a legal expert for the International Relations Committee (IRC) of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office headed by Vladimir Putin. According to the research of critics of Putin's administration, Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, the committee was involved in numerous business activities including gambling.

The connection with gambling business was established through a municipal enterprise called Neva Chance. The Committee was under investigation for illegal commercial operations by a St. Petersburg parliament committee. In November 1993, Medvedev became the legal affairs director of Ilim Pulp Enterprise, a St. Petersburg-based timber company. This enterprise was initially registered as a limited liability partnership, and then re-registered as a closed joint stock company Fincell, "50% of whose shares were owned by Dmitry Medvedev."

In 1998, he was also elected a member of the board of directors of the Bratskiy LPK paper mill. He worked for Ilim Pulp until 1999. In November 2005, he was appointed by Putin as First Deputy Prime Minister, First Deputy Chairman of the Council for Implementation of the Priority National Projects attached to the President of the Russian Federation, and Chairman of the Council's Presidium. In December 2005, Medvedev was named Person of the Year by Expert magazine, a Russian business weekly. He shared the title with Alexei Miller, CEO of Gazprom.

On 7 May 2008, Dmitry Medvedev took an oath as the third President of the Russian Federation in a ceremony held in Kremlin Palace. After taking the oath of office and receiving a gold chain of double-headed eagles symbolizing the presidency, he stated: "I believe my most important aims will be to protect civil and economic freedoms....We must fight for a true respect of the law and overcome legal nihilism, which seriously hampers modern development."

As his inauguration coincided with the celebration of the Victory Day on 9 May, he attended the military parade at Red Square and signed a decree to provide housing to war veterans.

Medvedev is married and has a son named Ilya (born 1995). His wife, Svetlana Vladimirovna Medvedeva, was both his childhood friend and school sweetheart. They married several years after their graduation from secondary school in 1982.

Medvedev wrote two short articles on the subject of his doctoral dissertation in Russian law journals. He is also one of the authors of a textbook on civil law for universities first published in 1991 (the 6th edition of Civil Law. In 3 Volumes. was published in 2007).

He is the author of a textbook for universities entitled, Questions of Russia's National Development, first published in 2007, concerning the role of the Russian state in social policy and economic development. He is also the lead co-author of a book of legal commentary entitled, A Commentary on the Federal Law "On the State Civil Service of the Russian Federation", scheduled for publication in 2008.