title: Farhan Akhtar

texts:
 one goal and work towards it effectively and dramatically." The film was a major success in India and went on to become the year's highest-grossing Bollywood production abroad with a worldwide gross of . It received mixed to positive reviews from critics, with Khalid Mohammed stating: "Throughout, you can't help feeling that <mask> <mask> could have made three far more valuable films out of the budget squandered on this thriller where cars are smashed as if they were tea cups." Next year, Akhtar produced and wrote the script of the neo-noir thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within.His production work was followed by the comedy films: Fukrey (2013) and Bangistan (2015), Baar Baar Dekho (2016), Raees and Fukrey Returns (both in 2017). Acting and singing
In 2008, <mask> made his solo acting and singing debut in a musical film titled Rock On! !, for which he wrote the script and also produced. The film was directed by Abhishek Kapoor. Prachi Desai, Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli co-starred along with him. As he had been learning guitar ever since the start of his directing career, he had been well-versed with it and used it for the film. The role played by him was that of Aditya, lead singer of the rock band "Magik".He sang five songs for the soundtrack album. The film was acclaimed by critics and received positive reviews upon release. Gaurav Malani of The Economic Times wrote that the film seemed to be "clearly designed by <mask> Akhar as his own acting debut and he doesn't let himself down. Lending voice to all his songs helps him to get into his character with effortless ease. One could certainly overlook the lisp in his dialogue delivery." Manish Gajjar of BBC wrote of his performance: "Director-turned-actor, <mask> Aktar surprises all with his superb, flawless performance, transforming from a hippy-style lead-singer to a subdued, dismal workaholic banker." <mask> received several accolades for his debut performance.The film, in addition won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. However, it did not create an impact at the box office and turned out to be an "average" grosser. After refusing an offer to sing a song for A. R. Rahman's album Blue, <mask> acted in, and produced his sister Zoya's directorial and written debut Luck By Chance, which had Hrithik Roshan and Konkona Sen Sharma in the lead roles. He was cast in the film after being deemed as a "perfect choice" for it. The story of the film revolved around a struggling actor who arrives in Mumbai to become a film star. It was released on 30 January 2009. Though failing to do well at the box office and being declared a "flop", the film received generally positive reviews from critics.Neil Genzlinger from The New York Times said: "It is Mr. Akhtar whose understated performance holds together this far-ranging, cameo-filled film. He manages to remain sympathetic even while wreaking romantic havoc." Rajeev Masand noted: "<mask> <mask> delivers a simple-enough likeable performance that is just what the film required — no showy flourishes, no loud outbursts, just a straight off spontaneous act that works like a dream." Following Luck By Chance, <mask> acted in a film titled The Fakir of Venice, which was initially scheduled to release before Rock on!! and was supposed to be his acting debut. Due to several delays, it was premiered at the 2009 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. It was written and directed by Anand Surapur, and accepted by <mask> after he described its script as "very powerful", while emphasising that it "touches upon weaknesses and confusions in all human beings."Before release, it premiered at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, and the Venice Film Festival at the ArcLight Hollywood. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film and felt that "<mask>, a producer, director and writer making his film debut here as an actor, is talented and handsome enough – and with looks that could translate into any number of ethnicities – to have a huge career ahead of him." The film was released theatrically in India on 8 February 2019. <mask> acted in, and produced his next film Karthik Calling Karthik (2010), a psychological thriller directed by Vijay Lalwani. He played Karthik, an introvert character, starring alongside Deepika Padukone for the first time. Preparation for the role involved working on the Rubik's Cube, which he learnt from the director. The film received mixed reviews and praise for <mask>'s acting from critics, with Sukanya Verma highlighting that "He conveys the anxiety, simplicity and frailty of Karthik even when the script isn't doing it for him.Perhaps it's his innate filmmaker instinct." The film had a good opening at the box office, as it was targeted towards the youth of the multiplexes. However, it failed to continue on its business and went on to become a "below average" grosser. <mask> produced and appeared as one of the three leads in his sister, Zoya <mask>'s coming-of-age film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara along with Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin. He was also credited as the scriptwriter for the film. He was the first actor to be cast in the film, and described his role as a "fun character" and a "guy who for the longest time takes nothing seriously." His real life father, Javed <mask> wrote poetry for the film, which he performs as a voice-over.His performance was favourably received by critics, with Shaikh Ayaz of Rediff.com highlighting his lines as "gentle, they won't make you ROFL; they are more like tender dig in the ribs." Kaveree Bamzai of India Today called his acting "sensitive, soulful", further saying that he was "perfectly capable of reading out his father's poetry." The film made  worldwide and was declared a commercial success at the box office. It also became one of the highest grossing Bollywood films overseas, earning around US$7.25 million. It won two National Awards, the Best Choreography and the Best Audiography. Following Don 2, His next, a biopic on Indian athlete Milkha Singh, popularly known as 'the Flying Sikh', was entitled 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag'. He essayed the role with such integrity that it set the standard for other actors considering to play titular protagonists in biopics.<mask> swept all awards that year for 'Best Actor' as did the film for 'Best Film'. It also claimed the National award for 'Best Popular Film providing Wholesome Entertainment.'. He also had to prepare his looks to depict a 17-year-old army recruit and endure an on-the-spot preparation at an army cantonment. In 2014, <mask> acted for the romantic comedy Shaadi Ke Side Effects alongside Vidya Balan, a film directed by Saket Chaudhary and produced by Pritish Nandy. It was a sequel to Pyaar Ke Side Effects (2006). Next year, <mask> featured in the supporting role in his sister Zoya <mask>'s Dil Dhadakne Do, an ensemble comedy-drama starring Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shah, Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma. In 2016, <mask> played the lead role of an Anti Terrorist Squad officer in Bejoy Nambiar's Wazir.It was his first action role as an actor, and for which he went through intense physical training and put on eight kilograms of weight. Raja Sen in his review called him "pretty good [..] early on in the film, but his performance starts to unravel once the film hits hysterical gear and he is required to do more than frown." <mask> also sang the duet "Atrangi yaari" with Amitabh Bachchan for Wazir. The film was a box-office success. <mask>'s final release of the year was the rock musical drama Rock on 2, a sequel to the 2008 critically acclaimed Rock On!!. He reprised his role of Aditya Shroff, the lead singer of his band. The film was <mask>'s attempt to bring northeast India into popular culture.In 2017, <mask> essayed the role of a Dawood Ibrahim-alike mafia don Maqsood in Daddy, co-starring Arjun Rampal. His next release was the ensemble drama Lucknow Central, co-starring Diana Penty, Gippy Grewal and Deepak Dobriyal. The film was about a prison escape drama planned by a group of prisoners who also form a music band and was inspired by a real incident. Lucknow Central was released on 15 September 2017 and met with mixed reviews and financial failure. <mask>'s next release, The Sky Is Pink (2019), co-starring Priyanka Chopra, Zaira Wasim and Rohit Saraf, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation from the audience at the Roy Thomson Hall. The film received critical acclaim, but failed to do well commercially. <mask> received training for boxing for his next release Toofan, a sports drama, directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, which will premiere on 21 May 2021 on Amazon Prime Video.Toofan is receiving positive review, Bollywood Bubble gave <mask> <mask>, Mrunal Thakur starer and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra directed Toofan, 4 stars saying the movie interlaces love and sport while throwing a flurry of punches on bigotry. The movie is released on Amazon Prime Video on 16 May 2021. Non-film work

<mask> appeared as one of the nine judges in the beauty pageant Femina Miss India (2002). He was the judge on the first season of the dance-reality show Nach Baliye (2005). He hosted a TV show on NDTV Imagine, called Oye! It's Friday! in the same year.He has endorsed several brands as a part of his career, especially after the release of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. These include Hindustan Unilever's water purifier product titled Pureit, Chivas Regal, Britannia Nutri Choice Biscuits, IndusInd Bank, Dulux Paint, Titan Industries and Crocin+2. Men Against Rape and Discrimination or MARD is a social campaign launched by <mask>. The idea came to the mind of <mask> when in August 2012, Pallavi Purkayastha, a lawyer by profession, was sexually assaulted by her watchman and then killed by him. Filmography

Discography
 2019 – Echoes (Album)
Songs from the album:-
Rearview Mirror,
Seagull,
Solitary Childhood,
My Friend Who Was,
Why Couldn't It Be Me?,
If Love Isn't Enough,
Pain Or Pleasure,
Bird On A Wire,
Be All You Can Be,
Let's Be Friends Again,
Don't Say It's The End,
Rearview Mirror- Ash Howes Mix,
Seagull- Ash Howes Mix. Playback singer

Awards and nominations

References

External links

 <mask> <mask> at BBC
 <mask> <mask> at The Times of India

1974 births
Living people
Film directors from Mumbai
Indian male screenwriters
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Indian male playback singers
Filmfare Awards winners
Musicians from Mumbai
Hindi-language film directors
Hindi film producers
Hindi-language lyricists
Indian lyricists
21st-century Indian film directors
Irani people
Indian

masks: Farhan Akhtar Akhtar Farhan Farhan Akhtar Akhtar Farhan Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Farhan Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Akhtar Farhan Akhtar Farhan Akhtar


title: Keith Lewin

type: original

texts:
<mask> is a British Professor of International education and Development at the University of Sussex and Director of the Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). He is known for his work in educational planning, economics and finance of education, teacher education, assessment, science and technology education policy in developing countries, educational aid and program evaluation. He has been adviser to various governmental, multilateral and non-profit organisations on education planning and policy, including the World Bank, DFID, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, UNICEF, UNDP, AusAID and others. His country experience includes projects in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and China. From 1995–2011 he was the Director of the Centre for International Education (CIE), at the University of Sussex, which he developed as an internationally recognised centre for research on education and development in low income countries. <mask> has supervised more than 40 Doctoral students and was the founding Director of the master's degree program in International Education and Development at the University of Sussex which is now in its thirty third year with over 500 alumni. He has been grant holder for over £4.5 million worth of research and development projects and has been a top ten grant holder at the University of Sussex for most of the last 15 years.<mask> is an honorary professor at Hangzhou University and Beijing Normal University. He is the author of numerous books, journal articles and reports on education and development. Biography
<mask> was born in Kent in the United Kingdom. He attended school in Kent and South London. From 1968 to 1971 he read physics at Manchester University where he graduated with a first class honours degree. He then went on to complete a Masters in Innovation and Science Policy jointly taught with Manchester Business School and wrote a thesis on the scientific research organisations that were supported by British aid. He then moved to the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex as one of its first graduate students.He joined a large multi-country project on education and development across six countries focusing on the "Diploma Disease" and the interface between education systems and labour markets. His thesis explored science education in Malaysia and Sri Lanka and the impact of externally supported innovations to improve access, quality and outcomes linked to development. In 1973/74 he took time out from his Doctorate to work with Voluntary Service Overseas teaching physics and maths in Kelantan, Malaysia. In 1977 he was appointed to a tenured post at the University of Sussex. He was appointed Reader in 1986 and Professor in 1995 when he became Director of the Centre for International Education. He is a chartered physicist and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences. South and South East Asia
<mask> has worked extensively in South East Asia with a special focus on Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and most recently in India.In Malaysia he was a visiting lecturer at University Malaya whilst completing his doctorate working closely with colleagues in the Pusat Perkembangan Kurrikulum (PPK). Subsequently, he co-authored a major report on science education in Malaysia published by the Malaysian Ministry of Education and the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning and has worked with many students and officials from the Ministry. In Sri Lanka <mask> initially worked with the national curriculum centre and was then an advisor for the establishment of the National Institute of Education (NIE) for UNDP. He also contributed to the development of the Sri Pada College of Education for UNDP. Subsequently, he has organised programs for high level Ministry officials and assisted with the development of the Education Sector Development Framework Programme (ESDFP) which is coordinated by the World Bank. In India <mask> has worked closely with the National University of Educational Planning (NUEPA) on a large scale program of research on access and equity using household surveys and child tracking to understand more about why more than half the children in North Indian states fail to reach secondary school. CREATE, a research consortium that Lewin helped develop, has designed and developed an extensive programme of empirical research involving large scale household suirveys and village level school based data collection.In addition Lewin has worked closely with teams from Bihar, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh and with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and NUEPA to develop state level framework plans for Rastriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) with the aim of progressing towards universal access of quality secondary education across India. These plans project participation, activities and costs forward and identify bottlenecks and critical constraints on expanded access. China
Lewin established the first educational link programs in China with a UK university in the early 1980s after the end of the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the "Gang of Four". Hangzhou University in Zhejiang provided a centre for UK-China education links under the leadership of Professor Wang Chengxu. After the links were established, which provided for exchange visits by students and staff, the first phase of work centred around evaluating the impact of the 1986 Basic Education Law. This anticipated the global commitments made at the World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) in Jomtien to universalise access to primary schooling, and followed from China's "Four Modernizations" drive to develop. In parallel with the work in Zhejiang a similar exchange was established with Beijing Normal University and Professor Wang Yingjie.This led to a UNICEF supported program to research educational reform in three different districts – one rich, one poor, and one with a national minority population. This was consolidated into a book published by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning. The study was replicated in 2009–2011 after twenty years of development had transformed many parts of urban and rural China. The new study show dramatic changes in all the case study areas and draws attention to changing patterns of horizontal and vertical equity and to large scale demographic changes related to internal migration. <mask> was made an Honorary professor at Hangzhou University (now Zheijiang University) in 1993 and at Beijing Normal University in 1994. Sub Saharan Africa
<mask> has worked in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. For ten years he worked with Dr Ude Bude and colleagues on a network to support development for environmental science and agriculture programs across fourteen Sub Saharan African countries.The network engaged national examination boards and curriculum developers and was supported by the German Foundation for International Development (DSE). Over the period there were clear improvements in the quality of national assessments which determine the outcomes from learning and teaching. <mask> was also Special Advisor to the Minister of Education in Mauritius on financing and the implementation of the Education Masterplan, supported by UNDP. <mask> started working in post apartheid South Africa in 1994. He has been involved in a range of work with national departments including sitting on the panel which reconfigured the national research funding system for science and technology. Lewin developed a link program with the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) and was instrumental in locating the Rockefeller Foundation funded African Children's Literacy in Science and Technology programme at UDW. He subsequently developed a close partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand to undertake research on access and equity in Gauteng and Eastern Cape.He was also the director of the Mpumalanga Primary School Initiative (MPSI), the first post apartheid DFID education programme in South Africa. Lewin developed and co-directed the Multisite Teacher Education Research Project (MUSTER) with Dr Janet Stuart. This was the largest DFID funded education research project in the 1990s. It undertook empirical work in South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, Ghana, and Trinidad and Tobago in initial teacher education and newly qualified teachers and created a collection of six books, over thirty working papers and a special edition of the International Journal of Educational and Development. In 2001 <mask> was invited to be a senior consultant to the Government of Uganda and DFID to develop the national framework for Post Primary Education and Training (PPET). Subsequently, he was also senior consultant to the Government of Tanzania and the World Bank on finance for the Secondary Education Development Programme (World Bank) and for Planning Nine Year Basic Education in Rwanda, funded by DFID and the CfBT Education Trust. In each case he developed software for national projection models for recurrent and capital financing to shape sustainable Medium Term  expenditure Frameworks, inform Sector Reviews leading to budget support, and focus policy dialogue on key issues.His work in Ghana includes planning and financing teacher education and the extensive program of research of CREATE. In Malawi he has worked closely with the Centre for Educational Research and Training (CERT) in Zomba on secondary school financing and non-state schooling. 2012 he gave the opening plenary at a national research workshop in Ethiopia focused on education access, equity and quality supported by the Ministry of Education, DFID and the British Council designed to support the development of the Education Sector Development Programme. Currently he is undertaking research on low price private schools in Malawi

Bilateral and Multilateral Organisations
<mask> has acted as an advisor to many multi and bi-lateral development partners. After presenting to the Bellagio Group of development partners in Mt St Marie, Quebec in 1981 he became increasingly involved in educational planning working closely with the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) in Paris where he developed approaches to planning in financial austerity and to planning science education. The latter developed over time and led to seminars on the development of science education at the World Bank and a book. Lewin's interests in financing led to an invitation from UNICEF to co-convene the Round table on "Educating all the Children: The Financial Challenge for the 1990s" at the World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) at Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 and to the first estimates of the costs of Education for All and the reforms needed to create affordable systems.Downstream this resulted in a flow of activities related to addressing problems of sustainable financing for the expanded access to secondary schooling critical for development dependent on more knowledge intensive production and competitive service sector industries. This was the subject of a Round Table at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000 hosted by IIEP. <mask>'s work on secondary school financing and development was presented in plenary to the Commonwealth Education Minister's Conference (CCEM 16) in Cape Town and to the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) biennial meeting in Maputo. In the recent past UNICEF's program to undertake research on out of school children has drawn on models of educational exclusion developed by Lewin for CREATE. These models have also been used by DFID in its 2010 Strategy paper, and by AusAID in its 2011 Thematic Strategy for Education. They were recently presented in the opening plenary of the ninth meeting of the Forum of Education Minister's (FEdMM) in Vanuatu. Lewin gave the plenary address to the Commonwealth Minister's meeting in Mauritius in 2012 on the post 2015 development agenda for education.As a result, a Ministerial Committee was established with Lewin as technical advisor. The resulting matrix of goals, targets and indicators was published in January 2013. Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE)
Lewin's main research commitment since 2005 has been to develop the parallel program of work within the framework of the CREATE partnerships. Lewin established this research consortium with initial funding from DFID of £2.5 million. The consortium has undertaken research on access, equity and learning in basic education (including lower secondary schooling) in Bangladesh at BRAC University, India at National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), Ghana at University of Education, Winneba and at University of Cape Coast, South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand and with the Institute of Education, University of London, and the Centre for International Education, University of Sussex on a large scale with high level partners over five years. The research has also taken place on a smaller scale in Kenya, Malawi, China, and Sri Lanka in partnership with national teams of researchers. It has produced over 150 research products, including five books, 75 research monographs and four special editions of journals working with over 100 researchers.The research is summarised in the CREATE publication Making Rights Realities and all other research products are available at the CREATE website. Multi-country research and development programs
In addition to the CREATE consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity, Lewin has directed several multi-country research and development programs that include:

 The Multisite Teacher Education Research Project (MUSTER) exploring teacher education in Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago (funded by DFID). The Mpumalanga Primary School Initiative support program, the first major DFID project in education in South Africa. Financing Secondary Education in Africa. A World Bank Secondary Education in Africa (SEIA) Program. Financing Secondary Education in Developing Countries (funded by IIEP) in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, China, Costa Rica and Francophone West Africa. Science Education and Development (funded by IIEP and World Bank) exploring

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title: Keith Lewin

texts:
 curriculum, pedagogy, planning and financing across a range of countries.Non Government Providers of Education in Malawi and South Africa. Contributions to education and development

Planner's Paradox
Lewin has made several contributions to thinking and to the literature on education and development. He has explored the systemic aspects of educational innovation in low income countries. This generated the "Planner's Paradox". Simply put innovation is needed where education systems fail to deliver quality learning equitably. Although innovation is needed, it can be disruptive, resource consuming, and may be unevenly implemented. As a result, innovation may adversely affect quality learning and equity.If the result is another innovation, the anticipated upward spiral to greater effectiveness and efficiency may become a downward spiral

This is related to the result of "planning in terms of what ought to be rather than what is." This is also tied to the concept of  "Zones of Improbable Progress (ZIPS), which Lewin developed, that characterise the pursuit of goals long after it has become clear they are unattainable in the time available. Balanced development strategies
<mask> was one of the first analysts to consistently argue for balanced development strategies during and after the Jomtien World Conference on Education for All. Jomtien set the scene for an over emphasis on bi-lateral and multi-lateral support for primary schooling at the expense of investment in other education sub-sectors. This became evident as patterns of disbursement under Education for All programs shifted over the next decade. Lewin's work on financing secondary expansion at IIEP (UNESCO), with the Secondary Education in Africa programme of the World Bank and in DFID advisor's retreats made a substantial contribution to shifting the emphasis to more balanced patterns of investment consistent with what many recipients of development assistance had long argued was needed. Multi Site Teacher Education research Programme
The Multi Site Teacher Education research Programme, which <mask> co-directed, remains one of the few cross national studies of initial teacher education with an African focus.It explored in depth what happens to trainees before, during and after training in traditional college based programs and in more innovative distance delivery training. It provided a grounded insight into teacher education curricula and practicums and identified many aspects of more and less effective practice. In particular it drew attention to the importance of matching the duration and costs of training with likely career futures and the "half life of a trained teacher". In high turnover systems long periods of residential pre-career training often favoured by teacher educators can be very expensive and inefficient if many graduates do not become career teachers. Lewin showed it is better to rebalance investment between initial training and continuous professional development which delivers more training "just in time" to those who need it when they need it. Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE)
Lewin's work in the CREATE consortium, with its extensive network of partners, has made a significant contribution to redefining policy dialogue around access, equity and learning outcomes. The "Zones of Exclusion" approach, developed within CREATE, has been used widely to unpack different aspects of exclusion and inclusion and has been used by DFID, AusAid, UNICEF, ADEA, UNESCO, and the World Bank.The "expanded vision of access" which includes enrolment and progression on schedule, high levels of attendance and time on task, and learning achievement consistent with grades, redefines access and is a reminder that it is not 65 million children who have no access to basic education as may be true in enrolment terms, but over 200 million who are unlikely to complete basic education successfully. Its insights into the extent and consequences of over-age enrolment, which is endemic in many parts of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia, are critical to the achievement of universal access – through to successful completion of – basic education, especially for girls. The findings illustrate how increased participation as a result of massive investments in Education for All programs have yet to provide as much benefit to the poorest as the middle poor. It also lead to confirmations that relate to the role of the state as "the provider of last resort" to the poorest, which provides a counterpoint to the arguments of those who believe that the role of the state in providing public goods like basic education to the poorest can and should be reduced. The country research reports of CREATE have all been launched at national level meetings attended by Ministers and development partners. Indicators of progress
<mask>'s work on indicators of progress has also been influential. His work provides insights into the issue that surround the distance between "target setters and target getters" and the risks that performance targeting leads to "gaming" the systems used to evaluate outcomes.It also highlights the "moral hazards" embedded in systems that reward progress by withdrawing support when goals are achieved, and the difficulties when performance asymptotically approaches a limit. He also highlights the difficulties of interpreting composite indices, such as Gross enrolment rates (GERs), net enrolment rates (NERS), gender parity indices (GPIs), and Education Development Indices (EDI), when changes in values in the same direction could indicate improvement or deterioration in performance. Publications
<mask> has been the author of numerous books, journal articles and reports on education and development. These include works on educational innovation in developing countries, educational planning and finance, science education and development, access to basic education, non-state providers of education, and teacher education. Selected books

 2011, Making Rights Realities: Researching Educational Access, Transitions and Equity. Research Report of the Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity. Brighton: University of Sussex.2008, Strategies for Sustainable Financing of Secondary Schooling in Sub Saharan Africa. Secondary Education in Africa (SEIA): Africa Human Development Series; World Bank, Washington DC. 2005, Non State Secondary Schooling in Sub Saharan Africa? Exploring the Evidence in South Africa and Malawi, with Yusuf Sayed. DFID, London. 2003, Researching Teacher Education: New Perspectives on Practice, Performance and Policy, with Janet Stuart, DFID Research Series 49a. 2003, Changing Patterns of Teacher Education in South Africa: Policy Practice and Prospects, edited with Yusuf Sayed and Michael Samuel, Heinemann.2003, Primary Teacher Education in Malawi: Insights into Practice and Policy, with Janet Stuart and Demis Kunje, DFID Research Series 49c. 2001, Financing Secondary Education in Developing Countries; Strategies for Sustainable Growth, with F. Caillods, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 1997, Science Education and Development; Planning and Policy Issues at Secondary Level. Pergamon/International Institute of Educational Planning, with F. Caillods and Gottelmann-Duret, Paris. 1996, Educational Innovation in Developing Countries; Case Studies of Change Makers, with Janet S Stuart (eds. ), MacMillan. 1994, Insights into Science Education; Planning and Policy Priorities in Malaysia, with S. Maimunah (eds.), International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 1994, Implementing Basic Education in China: Progress and Prospects in Rich, Poor and National Minority Areas, with Wang Ying Jie, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 1994, Educational Innovation in China; Tracing the Impact of the 1985 Reforms, with A. W. Little, Xu Hui and Zheng Ji Wei, Longman. 1993, Educating All the Children; Strategies for Primary Education in Developing Countries, with C. Colclough, Oxford University Press. 1992, Science Education in Developing Countries; Issues and Perspectives for Planners, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 1990, Doing Educational Research in Developing Countries: Qualitative Strategies, with G. Vulliamy and D. Stephens, Falmer Press. 1987 Education in Austerity; Options for Planners.Fundamentals of Educational Planning Series, International Institute for Educational Planning. Selected book chapters

 2012, "Nine Year Compulsory Education in China: What can be Learned from Two Decades of Development?" in Hangyin Qin (ed. ), The Experience of Nine Year Compulsory Education in China, pp. 1–22 UNESCO Publishing, Beijing. 2011, "Four Decades of Educational Planning – Retrospect and Prospect", in N V Varghese and M Bray (eds. ), Directions in Educational Planning: International Experiences and Perspectives, International Institute of Educational Planning, UNESCO Publishing, Paris
 2007, "Why Some EFA and Millennium Development Goals Will Not Be Met: Difficulties with Goals and Targets", in L Chisholm, G Bloch G and B Fleisch (eds.), Education, Growth Aid and Development: Towards Education for All. Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. 2007, "The Limits to Growth of Non-Government Private Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa" in G Walford and P Srivastava, Private Schools in Developing Countries, Symposium Books. 2006, "Costs and Finance of Multigrade – How Do the Books Balance?" in A W Little (ed. ), Education for All and Multigrade Teaching: Challenges and opportunities, Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands. 2005, "Seeking Secondary Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Four Fallacies, Four Foresights and Four Freedoms" in K King (ed.), Reintegrating Education, Skills and Work in Africa: towards informal or Knowledge Economies? Towards Autonomy or Dependency in Development?, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. 2004, "Planning Post Primary Education: A New Priority" in The Blackboard Jungle, South African Institute of International Affairs, Johanesburg. 2003 "Science Teacher Education Policy in Developing Countries" in K. O-saki, K. Hosea, and W. Ottevanger (eds. ), Science Teacher Education in Africa, Ways Forward, Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 2003, "An International Perspective on Teacher Education Across the MUSTER Countries" in K. M. <mask>, M. Samuel M and Y. Sayed (eds. ), Changing Patterns of Teacher Education in South Africa: Policy Practice and Prospects, Heinemann.2001, "The Status of Secondary Schooling in Developing Countries" in K. M<mask> and F. Caillods (eds. ), Financing Secondary Education in Developing Countries; Strategies for Sustainable Growth. International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 2000, "The Cost of Culture: Some Dilemmas for Educational Investment in Mauritius" in F. Leach and A. W. Little (eds.) Education, Culture and Economics: Dilemmas and Prospects. Garland, New York 25pp. 2000, "Educational Development in Asia; Prospects, Problems and Priorities" in L. E. Malberg, S. E. Hansen and K. Heino (eds.), Basic Education for All: A Global Concern for Quality, Abo Akademi University, Sweden. Selected articles in journals

 2011, "Access to Education Revisited: Equity, Drop out and Transitions to Secondary School in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa", International Journal of Education and Development, 31 (4). pp. 333–338. 2011, "Expanding Access to Secondary Education: Can India Catch Up?" International Journal of Education and Development, 31 (4). pp.382–394. 2011, "The Policies, Politics and Progress of Access to Basic Education", Journal of Educational Policy, 26 (4). 477:483. 2011, "Policy Dialogue and Target Setting: Do Current Indicators of Education for All Signify Progress?" Journal of Educational Policy, 26 (4). pp. 571–589.2009, "Access to education in sub-Saharan Africa: patterns, problems and possibilities." Comparative Education, 45 (2). pp. 151–174. 2009, "Education in Sub Saharan Africa: Researching Access, Transitions and Equity". Comparative Education, 45 (2). pp.143–151. Recent CREATE Publications

 2012, Access, Transitions and Equity in Education in Ghana: Researching Practice, Problems and Policy, Kwame Akyeampong, Caine Rolleston, Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, <mask> <mask>. 2011, Participation and Performance in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa with special reference to Kenya: Improving Policy and Practice, K. M<mask>, P. Wasanga, E. Wanderi, A. Somerset. 2011, The Role of Maternal Education During Educational Expansion for Children in Sub-Saharan Africa, Ricardo Sabates, Jimena Hernandez Fernandez, <mask> <mask>. 2011, Education and Change in Rich, Poor and National Minority Areas in China: Two Decades of Transition, <mask> <mask>, Wang Lu. 2011, Taking Targets to Task Revisited: How Indicators of Progress on Access to Education can Mislead, <mask> <mask>. 2011, Beyond Universal Access to Elementary Education in India: Is it Achievable at Affordable Costs?, <mask> <mask>.2011, Changing Patterns of Access to Education in Anglophone and Francophone Countries in Sub Saharan Africa: Is Education for All Pro-Poor?, <mask> <mask> and Ricardo Sabates. 2010, School Drop Out in Bangladesh: New Insights from Longitudinal Evidence, Ricardo Sabates, Altaf Hossain, <mask><mask>. 2007, Expanding Access to Secondary Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Key Planning and Finance Issues, <mask> <mask>. 2007, Long Term Planning for EFA and the MDGs: Modes and Mechanisms (Summary), <mask> <mask>. 2007, The Limits to Growth of Non-Government Private Schooling in Sub Saharan Africa (Summary), <mask> <mask>. 2007, Improving Access, Equity and Transitions in Education: Creating a Research Agenda (Summary), <mask> <mask>. Selected articles in popular press

 "Pacific: Parents must send children to school at right age", Pacific.Scoop, May 2012

References

External links
 <mask>'s personal website
 Profile page at University of Sussex
 Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE)

Living people
Development specialists
People educated at Beckenham and Penge County Grammar School
People in international development
Alumni of the University of Sussex
Alumni of the University of Manchester
British educational theorists
Academics of the University of Sussex
Year of birth missing

masks:
Lewin
Lewin
Lewin
Lewin
Lewin
. Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
. Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
. Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith M
Lewin
Keith Lewin


title: Charles Edward Broadhurst

texts:
<mask> (1826 – 26 April 1905) was a pioneer pastoralist and pearler in colonial Western Australia. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1874 and 1875. In 2009, he was recognised as one of Western Australia's 100 most influential citizens. Early life in Britain and Victoria

Born in Manchester, England in 1826, <mask> was born into the Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee textile empire, but in being a younger son, emigrated to Victoria in 1843 where he joined his elder brother <mask> on his sheep station. Until 1860, he was a pastoralist at Swinton in partnership with his brother. On 22 June 1860, <mask> married Eliza Howes, a talented teacher, singer and musician with whom he would have seven children. He then commenced operating on his own at Wallan exporting horses to India.Denison Plains Company

In 1864, <mask> became involved in the Denison Plains Company's plans to transport and establish Victorian settlers to the fabled  Denison Plains, near present-day Halls Creek via the new settlement at Camden Harbour, Western Australia. Appointed manager, he sailed with settlers and stock on the Warrior in May 1865. On hearing in Fremantle of the failure at Camden Harbour, they decided to sail for the settlement at Roebuck Bay instead, but after failing to enter the bay due to adverse winds, the settlers were disembarked at Tien Tsin, later to be called Cossack the chief port and landing at Nickol Bay. The company suffered heavy financial losses when news of the difficulties being experienced in the north-west eventually filtered back to Melbourne and was eventually bankrupted. The settlers who had landed with him  blamed <mask> for the failure, and criticised him for refusing to share out the stock until the company's affairs were settled. This was to be the first of many controversies that dogged his life and career from that time on. His role in the development of Roebourne

In June 1866, <mask> was a member of an exploring party under Trevarton Sholl, son of the Government Resident Robert Sholl, which searched for good pasture and a good harbour in Exmouth Gulf.The expedition was absent for 49 days, and covered 1,000 miles of terrain, but found nothing of value. Partly as a result it was decided to establish a townsite at Roebourne and make this the administrative base for what was then called the 'North District'. This occurred in August 1866. Later <mask> was Acting Government Resident when Sholl took leave of absence. <mask>

<mask> and the children, (the two boys <mask>., Florance and a newly-born  daughter Sarah)  left the north soon after the disappearance of the schooner Emma, a  tragedy which claimed the lives of  Trevarton Sholl, W.F. Tays, the then leading pearler in the district and a third of the entire European population of the North District in 1867. In her husband's absence, she established a day and boarding school in Perth and taught English, maths, music and languages in order to make ends meet.Her home also became a focal point for  young society women, though she was never able to take her rightful place in society due to the scandals surrounding her husband. Career and roles
<mask>  <mask> remained in the north west of Western Australia for many years  maintaining pastoral runs on what was to become the Karratha Station  on the Maitland River on the Ashburton River. From 1866, he was also involved in the pearling industry at Nickol Bay where 'naked diving' (that is, without any aids including goggles) became the norm. In 1868, in partnership with Dempster, Barker and Gull, he introduced the 'hard hat' to the pearling industry a full twenty years ahead of its time, only to fail. When the demands on the native divers became untenable, he  was also one of the first settlers to import what were then generally, but incorrectly, called Malay pearl divers. In 1871, <mask>  travelled to England, where he bought the  for use as a transport for shell and labourers and as a mother boat  in the pearl industry. It was also to be the first steamship to trade on the coast of Western Australia, carrying over 140 Malays to the coast and taking goods, passengers and shell to the Straits Settlements.The loss of the Xantho  after only a few voyages caused <mask> substantial financial difficulties. Unable to continue as a pearler in the north west,  he  took his men to Shark Bay, there joining Francis Cadell as the two leaders in the industry. Initially very successful, being lauded as a "man in 10,000" due to his great successes, on 6 July 1874, <mask> was nominated to the Western Australian Legislative Council. He then moved to Perth leaving his nephew <mask> in charge. A severe downturn in the industry saw reports that the Malays employed by <mask> and Cadell were unpaid, unable to return home and some had starved to death. In 1875 magistrate Robert Fairbairn was sent to investigate pearling conditions at Shark Bay. Fairbairn held that <mask> had not paid 18 Malays a total of £183.4s. 2d. recovering £11. 12s. 5d. from the sale of Broadhurst's property at Shark Bay. Cadell was also found to have underpaid 10 Malays £198.14s. 4d. from which they recovered just £16. 16s. <mask> resigned from the Legislative Council on 24 November 1875. He then sought a writ of certiorari and the judgement was set aside by the Supreme Court in January 1876 on the technicality that the notice had been given to his nephew Daniel and not to <mask> personally. <mask> experimented with the sale of Shark Bay shell in London 1878, but failed.He pioneered fish-canning at Mandurah with considerable success, but soon sold the enterprise. By 1884, he had established the guano industry at the Houtman Abrolhos; though he worked energetically in the industry until 1890 he did not prove a success. In that year, he retired in favour of his son, Florance <mask>, who with his mercantile education proved enormously successful. In excavating the Gun Island guano deposits,  F.C. <mask>'s men unearthed relics from the Dutch East India Company ship . He catalogued these finds and presented them to the State of Western Australia. Initially thinking the relics were from the , <mask> arranged for the purchase and translation of an original account of its loss.This led to its eventual discovery after Henrietta Drake-Brockman, a playmate of his children, became interested in the story and as an adult conducted her own research into the tragedy. Retirement in England

After Florance <mask>  took over the guano industry, <mask> and <mask> returned to England and they purchased a home in Bournemouth they called Karrakatta. One daughter, Katherine Elime <mask>, followed her mother's interests (as evidenced by entries in Eliza's scrapbook since donated to the Western Australian Museum) in the 19th century feminist movement. She subsequently became a suffragist. On her return to Western Australia  'Kitty' <mask> was one of the 12 women who formed the St George Reading Circle, which became the Karrakatta Club. It became a leading force in making Western Australian the second state in Australia to grant women the vote. Predeceased by Eliza, <mask> died on 26 April 1905 at Bournemouth.References

1826 births
1905 deaths
Explorers of Western Australia
Members of the Western Australian Legislative Council
Settlers of Western Australia
Politicians from Manchester
British emigrants to Australia
Pearlers
19th-century Australian politicians

masks:
Charles Edward Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Robert Henson Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Eliza Broadhurst
Eliza Broadhurst
Charles Jr
Charles
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Daniel Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Charles
Eliza Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Broadhurst
Charles Broadhurst


title: Kate Steinitz

texts:
<mask> (2 August 1889 - 7 April 1975), informally known as “the Mama of Dada,” played a significant role in the history of art on a number of levels: in the creation of her own art works, as a preserver and collector of the art of her times (the European Bauhaus and Dadaist movements of the early 20th century), as a promoter of art and artists, and, for the last thirty years of her life, as a librarian of the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana, first when the library was based in the collector's medical offices in downtown Los Angeles, and later as honorary curator when the collection was given to UCLA in 1961. <mask> is especially remembered for collaborative work with the artist Kurt Schwitters, and, in later life, her scholarship on Leonardo da Vinci. Life
<mask> (at first called Käte or Käthe) Traumann was born into an upper-middle-class family in Beuthen, Upper Silesia (now Bytom, Poland). In 1899, her father, Judge Arnold Traumann, was transferred to Berlin, where she was educated. She attending drawing classes with Käthe Kollwitz and later the "Malschule für Frauen" (Women's Painting School) run by the artist Lovis Corinth. She also attended the Academie und Studienateliers fuer Malerei und Plastik (connected with the Berlin Secession art association), and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1912 or 1913, after returning from a study visit in Paris, she married a physician, Dr<mask> (March 25, 1881 - Feb 1, 1942).With the outbreak of war in 1914, her husband joined the army as a military physician. In 1917, he was called to the front, and in 1918 the <mask> family, which now included daughters Ilse and Lotti, relocated to Hanover. A third daughter, Beate, was born in 1920. While in Hanover, <mask> painted portraits of her daughters. Other favored subjects for her drawings and paintings included dancers, entertainers, and other performers. She became highly involved in the local art scene, including the burgeoning Dada movement. <mask> collaborated with her friend, the artist Kurt Schwitters on several projects, including children's books, opera librettos, books, and festivals.Together with Theo van Doesburg, Schwitters and <mask> produced several children's fairy-tale books that featured unusual typography, including Hahnepeter (Peter the Rooster, 1924), Die Märchen vom Paradies (The Fairy Tales of Paradise, 1924–25), and Die Scheuche (The Scarecrow, 1925). For the publication of their work, the artists founded their own publishing house, which they called APOSS, an acronym that stood for "A=active; P=paradox; OS=oppose sentimentality; S=sensitive." <mask> also began to write for the newspaper the Hannoverscher Kurier, and in various journals of the Berlin publisher Ullstein Verlag, using her own name as well as under the pseudonyms "Annette Nobody" and "Mia Meyer." In 1936, the <mask> family immigrated to New York City to escape Nazi persecution, after having been told by government authorities that she could no longer write for German publications. While in New York <mask> continued to paint, and to  augment the family's income by doing freelance commercial art work and research assignments. She also began working as a book scout for Los Angeles-based antiquarian book dealer Jake Zeitlin, who was helping collector Elmer Belt build his Leonardo da Vinci collection. In 1941, <mask>'s youngest daughter Beate, age 20, died in Palestine of an illness.This loss was followed on February 1, 1942, by the death of her husband Dr. <mask> under unusual circumstances. He was found dead on the floor of his consulting room at 147 East 50th St. at 11:00 p.m. by his wife. He had written a note to her in German in which he described a variety of symptoms and had decided from them that he was suffering from coronary thrombosis. The note said he was in great pain and intended to take morphine by injection, but there was no mention of suicide in the note and there was no evidence that the hypodermic syringe that was found on a desk near him had been used. This caused police who investigated the death to believe that he might have died of a heart attack before he could use the morphine. In August 1942, <mask> moved to San Francisco, California to be closer to her daughter Ilse. In 1944, she became an American citizen and relocated to Los Angeles.She consulted Dr. Belt about a medical problem, and he recognized her attraction to and interest in his Leonardo collection. And though she had no formal academic credentials or training in librarianship, he appreciated her sophistication, intelligence, language skills, wide network of friendships abroad, and knowledge of art and books. Grateful to Dr. Belt for steady and fulfilling work, <mask> threw herself into the job, transforming herself into a serious Leonardo scholar. In 1958, she published an important bibliography of the Treatise on Painting and in 1969 she was invited to deliver the annual Lettura Vinciana in Vinci, Italy, the highest honor for contributors to the field of Leonardo studies. In 1961, when the collection was transferred to UCLA, by which time she was 72, she was appointed Honorary Curator of the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana by Librarian Lawrence Clark Powell and Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy and continued to be a regular presence in the Library. Despite her professional turn towards scholarship, <mask>'s artistic, bohemian, and fun-loving side remained fully intact during her Los Angeles years. Both European and American art world figures called on her in her West Los Angeles apartment, where she had important work created by the artistic luminaries of her youth including El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Auguste Rodin, Otto Nebel, Franz Marc, and others.Her friends in Los Angeles included members of the German-Jewish émigré community, contemporary innovators like Buckminster Fuller, and people across the spectrum of the art world. On the occasion of her 80th birthday in 1969, the Los Angeles County Museum of art organized an exhibition consisting of both her own work and art from her personal collection. For the opening, <mask> wore a silver lamé sheath and a headband with antennae-like bobbling balls and declared to friends that she was “Ready for the Space Age.”

Some of <mask>'s art collection went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but most of it was placed by <mask>'s daughter Ilse Berg at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College. In 1963, she published a book on Kurt Schwitters in German, with an English edition being published in 1968. <mask> died on April 7, 1975, Los Angeles. In 1994, a retrospective of her work was held at Severin Wunderman Museum, a private museum in Irvine, California which existed from 1985 to 1995. Further reading
<mask>, <mask>n, and William A. Emboden.1994. <mask><mask>: art into life into art : a retrospective of the life and work of one of the most diverse Bauhaus and Dada artists. Irvine, Calif: The Museum. <mask>: Art and Collection: Avant-Garde Art in Germany in the1920s and 1930s. San Bernardino, CA: The Art Gallery, California State College San Bernardino, April 10 - May 14, 1982. "<mask>, Librarian, Artist, Scholar: Being a Thirteen-Part Tribute to One Whose Verve Has Enlivened Some Eight Decades on Two Continents." Wilson Library Bulletin, 44, no.5 (January 1970): 512–537. Contributions by Elmer Belt, Justin Bier, Bates Lowry, Jacob Zeitlin, Peter Selz, Jean Sutherland Boggs, Ladislao Reti, Weiland Schmeid, Robert Haas, Walter Hopps, J.M. Edelstein, and William A. Emboden, Jr.

Archival sources
Steinitz (<mask>n) Papers, (Collection 1770). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8d79hxc/admin/?query=steinitz#aspace_4eb2d304ff7b831120cd3e010da45e67 Processed and opened for research 2017–18. A Finding Aid to the <mask>itz Papers, circa 1910–2002, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. https://sova.si.edu/record/AAA.steikate?s=90&n=10&t=C&q=Poems&i=92 Processed and opened for research 2016.Schwitters-Steinitz Collection, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C libraryimage.nga.gov/doc/pdf/schwitters_steinitz.pdf  Processed in 1993; with additional items purchased in 1997 and processed in 2007. Notes

External links
 Photograph of <mask>, 1928, Hanover, Germany, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Photograph of Ilse, Beate, and Lotti <mask>, daughters of <mask>, circa 1930, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Backstroke, 1930, Photograph by <mask>, Steinitz-Berg Family Art Collection, MoMA
Photograph of <mask> in the da Vinci library, Ottonebel.org

1889 births
1975 deaths
People from Bytom
American art historians
People from the Province of Silesia
Women art historians
German emigrants to the United States
Dada
American women historians

masks:
Kate Steinitz
Steinitz
Kate
. Ernst Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Ernst Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Steinitz
Kate Trauman
Kate T
. Steinitz
Kate Steinitz
Kate Steinitz
Kate Trauman
Kate Stein
Kate Steinitz
Steinitz
Kate Steinitz
Kate Steinitz
Kate Steinitz


title: Dmitry Medvedev

texts:
<mask> (; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician serving as deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. <mask> served as president from 2008 to 2012 and as prime minister from 2012 to 2020. <mask> was elected president in the 2008 election. He was regarded as more liberal than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who was also appointed prime minister during <mask>'s presidency. <mask>'s top agenda as president was a wide-ranging modernisation programme, aiming at modernising Russia's economy and society, and lessening the country's reliance on oil and gas. During <mask>'s tenure, the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty was signed by Russia and the United States, Russia emerged victorious in the Russo-Georgian War, and recovered from the Great Recession. <mask> also launched an anti-corruption campaign, despite later being accused of corruption himself.He served a single term in office and was succeeded by Putin following the 2012 presidential election. <mask> was then appointed by Putin as prime minister. He resigned along with the rest of the government on 15 January 2020 to allow Putin to make sweeping constitutional changes; he was succeeded by Mikhail Mishustin on 16 January 2020. On the same day, Putin appointed <mask> to the new office of deputy chairman of the Security Council. Background

Early life

<mask> was born on 14 September 1965 in Leningrad, in the Soviet Union. His father, Anatoly Afanasyevich <mask> (November 1926 – 2004), was a chemical engineer teaching at the Leningrad State Institute of Technology. <mask>'s mother, Yulia Veniaminovna <mask>a, born 21 November 1939), studied languages at Voronezh University and taught Russian at Herzen State Pedagogical University.Later, she would also work as a tour guide at Pavlovsk Palace. The Medvedevs lived in a 40 m2 apartment at 6 Bela Kun Street in the Kupchino Municipal Okrug (district) of Leningrad. <mask> was his parents' only child. The Medvedevs were regarded at the time as a Soviet intelligentsia family. His maternal grandparents were Ukrainians whose surname was Kovalev, originally Koval. <mask> traces his family roots to the Belgorod region. As a child, <mask> was intellectually curious, described by his first grade teacher Vera Smirnova as a "dreadful why-asker".After school, he would spend some time playing with his friends before hurrying home to work on his assignments. In the third grade, <mask> studied the ten-volume Small Soviet Encyclopedia belonging to his father. In the second and third grades, he showed interest in dinosaurs and memorised primary Earth's geologic development periods, from the Archean up to the Cenozoic. In the fourth and fifth grades he demonstrated interest in chemistry, conducting elementary experiments. He was involved to some degree with sport. In grade seven, his adolescent curiosity blossomed through his relationship with Svetlana Linnik, his future wife, who was studying at the same school in a parallel class. This apparently affected <mask>'s school performance.He calls the school's final exams in 1982 a "tough period when I had to mobilize my abilities to the utmost for the first time in my life." Student years and academic career

In the autumn of 1982, 17-year-old <mask> enrolled at Leningrad State University to study law. Although he also considered studying linguistics, <mask> later said he never regretted his choice, finding his chosen subject increasingly fascinating, stating that he was lucky "to have chosen a field that genuinely interested him and that it was really 'his thing'". Fellow students described <mask> as a correct and diplomatic person who in debates presented his arguments firmly, without offending. During his student years, <mask> was a fan of the English rock bands Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple, fond of sports and participated in athletic competitions in rowing and weight-lifting. He graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987 (together with Ilya Yeliseyev, Anton Ivanov, Nikolay Vinnichenko and Konstantin Chuychenko, who later became associates). After graduating, <mask> considered joining the prosecutor's office to become an investigator however, he took an opportunity to pursue graduate studies as the civil law chair, deciding to accept three budget-funded post-graduate students to work at the chair itself.In 1990, <mask> defended his dissertation titled, "Problems of Realisation of Civil Juridical Personality of State Enterprise" and received his Candidate of Sciences degree in private law. Anatoly Sobchak, a major democratic politician of the 1980s and 1990s was one of <mask>'s professors at the university. In 1988, <mask> 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. After Sobchak's election campaign <mask> continued his academic career in the position of docent at his alma mater, now renamed Saint Petersburg State University. He taught civil and Roman law until 1999. According to one student, <mask> was a popular teacher; "strict but not harsh". During his tenure <mask> co-wrote a popular three-volume civil law textbook which over the years has sold a million copies.<mask> also worked at a small law consultancy firm which he had founded with his friends Anton Ivanov and Ilya Yeliseyev, to supplement his academic salary. Early career

Career in St Petersburg

In 1990, Anatoly Sobchak returned from Moscow to become Chairman of the Leningrad City Council. Sobchak hired <mask> who had previously headed his election campaign. One of Sobchak's former students, Vladimir Putin, became an adviser. The next summer, Sobchak was elected Mayor of the city, and <mask> became a consultant to City Hall's Committee for Foreign Affairs. It was headed by Putin. In November 1993, <mask> became the legal affairs director of Ilim Pulp Enterprise (ILP), a St. Petersburg-based timber company.<mask> aided the company in developing a strategy as the firm launched a significant expansion. <mask> received 20% of the company's stock. In the next seven years Ilim Pulp Enterprise became Russia's largest lumber company with an annual revenue of around $500 million. <mask> sold his shares in ILP in 1999. He then took his first job at the central government of Russia. The profits realised by <mask> are unknown. Career in the central government

In June 1996, <mask>'s colleague Vladimir Putin was brought into the Russian presidential administration.Three years later, on 16 August 1999, he became Prime Minister of Russia. Three months later, in November 1999, <mask> became one of several from St. Petersburg brought in by Vladimir Putin to top government positions in Moscow. On 31 December, he was appointed deputy head of the presidential staff, becoming one of the politicians closest to President Putin. During the 2000 Presidential elections, he was Putin's campaign manager. Putin won the election with 52.94% of the popular vote. <mask> was quoted after the election commenting he thoroughly enjoyed the work and the responsibility calling it "a test of strength". As President, Putin launched a campaign against corrupt oligarchs and economic mismanagement.He appointed <mask> chairman of gas company Gazprom's board of directors in 2000 with Alexei Miller. <mask> put an end to the large-scale tax evasion and asset stripping by the previous corrupt management. <mask> then served as deputy chair from 2001 to 2002, becoming chair for the second time in June 2002, a position which he held until his ascension to presidency in 2008. During <mask>'s tenure, Gazprom's debts were restructured and the company's market capitalisation grew from $7.8 billion in 2000 to $300 billion in early 2008. <mask> headed Russia's negotiations with Ukraine and Belarus during gas price disputes. In October 2003, <mask> replaced Alexander Voloshin as presidential chief of staff. In November 2005, <mask> moved from the presidential administration of the government when Putin appointed him as the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia.In particular, <mask> was made responsible for the implementation of the National Priority Projects focusing on improving public health, education, housing and agriculture. The program saw an increase of wages in healthcare and education and construction of new apartments but its funding, 4% of the federal budget, was not enough to significantly overhaul Russia's infrastructure. According to opinion polls, most Russians believed the money invested in the projects had been spent ineffectively. Presidential candidate

Following his appointment as First Deputy Prime Minister, many political observers began to regard <mask> as a potential candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, although Western observers widely believed <mask> was too liberal and too pro-Western for Putin to endorse him as a candidate. Instead, Western observers expected the candidate to arise from the ranks of the so-called siloviki, security and military officials many of whom were appointed to high positions during Putin's presidency. The silovik Sergei Ivanov and the administrator-specialist Viktor Zubkov were seen as the strongest candidates. In opinion polls which asked Russians to pick their favourite successor to Putin from a list of candidates not containing Putin himself, <mask> often came out first, beating Ivanov and Zubkov as well as the opposition candidates.In November 2006, <mask>'s trust rating was 17%, more than double than that of Ivanov. <mask>'s popularity was probably boosted by his high-profile role in the National Priority Projects. Many observers were surprised when on 10 December 2007, President Putin announced that <mask> was his preferred successor. The announcement was staged on TV with four parties suggesting <mask>'s candidature to Putin, and Putin then giving his endorsement. The four pro-Kremlin parties were United Russia, Fair Russia, Agrarian Party of Russia and Civilian Power. United Russia held its party congress on 17 December 2007 where by secret ballot of the delegates, <mask> was officially endorsed as their candidate in the 2008 presidential election. He formally registered his candidacy with the Central Election Commission on 20 December 2007 and said he would step down as chairman of Gazprom, since under the current laws, the president is not permitted to hold another post.His registration was formally accepted as valid by the Russian Central Election Commission on 21 January 2008. Describing his reasons for endorsing <mask>, Putin said:

2008 presidential election

Election campaign

As 2 March 2008 election approached, the outgoing President, Vladimir Putin, remained the country's most popular politician. An opinion poll by Russia's independent polling organisation, the Levada Center, conducted over the period 21–24 December 2007 indicated that when presented a list of potential candidates, 79% of Russians were ready to vote for <mask> if the election was immediately held. The other main contenders, the Communist Gennady Zyuganov and the LDPR's Vladimir Zhirinovsky both received in 9% in the same poll. Much of Putin's popularity transferred to his chosen candidate, with 42% of the survey responders saying that <mask>'s strength came from Putin's support to him. In his first speech after being endorsed, <mask> announced that, as president, he would appoint Vladimir Putin to the post of prime minister to head the Russian government. Although constitutionally barred from a third consecutive presidential term, such a role would allow Putin to continue as an influential figure in Russian politics.Putin pledged that he would accept the position of prime minister should <mask> be elected president. Although Putin had pledged not to change the distribution of authority between the president and prime minister, many analysts expected a shift in the center of power from the presidency to the prime minister post when Putin assumed the latter under a <mask> presidency. Election posters portrayed the pair side by side with the slogan "Together We Win" (""). <mask> vowed to work closely with Putin once elected. In December 2007, in preparation for his election campaign, <mask> announced that funding of the National Priority Projects would be raised by 260 billion rubles for 2008. <mask>'s election campaign was relatively low-key and, like his predecessor, <mask> refused to take part in televised debates, citing his high workload as first deputy prime minister as the reason. Instead, <mask> preferred to present his views on his election website Medvedev2008.ru.In January 2008, <mask> launched his campaign with stops in the oblasts. On 22 January 2008, <mask> held what was effectively his first campaign speech at Russia's second Civic Forum, advocating a liberal-conservative agenda for modernising Russia. <mask> argued that Russia needed "decades of stable development" because the country had "exhausted its share of revolutions and social upheavals back in the twentieth century". <mask> therefore emphasised liberal modernisation while still aiming to continue his predecessor's agenda of stabilisation. On 15 February 2008, <mask> held a keynote speech at the Fifth Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, saying that:

In the Krasnoyarsk speech, <mask> harshly condemned Russia's "legal nihilism" and highlighted the need to ensure independence of the country's juridical system and the need for an anti-corruption program. In economy, <mask> advocated private property, economic deregulation and lower taxes. According to him, Russia's economy should be modernised by focusing on four "I"s: institutions, infrastructure, innovation and investment.Election win

<mask> was elected President of Russia on 2 March 2008. The final election results gave him 70.28% (52,530,712) of votes with a turnout of 69.78% of registered voters. The main contenders, Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky received 17.72% and 9.35% respectively. Three-quarters of <mask>'s vote was Putin's electorate. According to surveys, had Putin and <mask> both run for president in the same elections, <mask> would have received 9% of the vote. The fairness of the election was disputed by international observers. Andreas Gross, head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) mission, stated that the elections were "neither free nor fair".Moreover, the few western vote monitors bemoaned the inequality of candidate registration and the abuse of administrative resources by <mask> allowing blanket television coverage. Russian programmer Shpilkin analysed the results of <mask>'s election and came to the conclusion that the results were falsified by the election committees. However, after the correction for the alleged falsification factor, <mask> still came out as the winner although with 63% of the vote instead of 70%. Presidency (2008–12)

Inauguration

On 7 May 2008, <mask> took an oath as the third President of the Russian Federation in a ceremony held in the Grand Kremlin Palace. After taking the oath of office and receiving a gold chain of double-headed eagles symbolising the presidency, he stated:

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. Personnel appointments

On 8 May 2008, <mask> appointed  Vladimir Putin Prime Minister of Russia as he had promised during his election campaign.The nomination was approved by the State Duma with a clear majority of 392–56, with only Communist Party of the Russian Federation deputies voting against. 12 May 2008, Putin proposed the list of names for his new cabinet which <mask> approved. Most of the personnel remained unchanged from the period of Putin's initial presidency but there were several high-profile changes. The Minister of Justice, Vladimir Ustinov was replaced by Aleksandr Konovalov; the Minister of Energy, Viktor Khristenko was replaced with Sergei Shmatko; the Minister of Communications, Leonid Reiman was replaced with Igor Shchyogolev and Vitaliy Mutko received the newly created position of Minister of Sports, Tourism and Youth policy. In the presidential administration, <mask> replaced Sergei Sobyanin with Sergei Naryshkin as the head of the administration. The head of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, was replaced with Alexander Bortnikov. <mask>'s economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich and his Press Attaché Natalya Timakova became part of the President's core team.<mask>'s old classmate from his student years, Konstantin Chuichenko, became his personal assistant. <mask> was reported to have taken care not to upset the balance of different factions in the Presidential administration and in the government. However, the influence of the powerful security/military-related siloviki weakened after <mask>'s inauguration for the first time in 20 years. In their place, <mask> brought in the so-called civiliki, a network of St. Petersburg civil law scholars preferred by <mask> for high positions. "Tandem rule"

From the beginning of <mask>'s tenure, the nature of

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 his Presidency and his relationship with Vladimir Putin was subject to considerable media speculation. In a unique situation in the Russian Federation's political history, the constitutionally powerful President was now flanked with a highly influential Prime Minister (Putin), who also remained the country's most popular politician. Previous Prime Ministers had proven to be almost completely subordinate to the President and none of them had enjoyed strong public approval, with Yevgeny Primakov and Putin's previous tenure (1999–2000) as Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin being the only exceptions.Journalists quickly dubbed the new system with a practically dual-headed executive as "government by tandem" or "tandemocracy", with <mask> and Putin called the "ruling tandem". Daniel Treisman has argued that early in <mask>'s presidency, Putin seemed ready to disengage and started withdrawing to the background. In the first year of <mask>'s presidency, two external events threatening Russia—the late-2000s financial crisis and the 2008 South Ossetia war—changed Putin's plans and caused him to resume a stronger role in Russian politics. Main external events

2008 South Ossetia war

The long-lingering conflict between Georgia and the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were supported by Russia, escalated during the summer of 2008. In the night of 7–8 August, Georgia launched a military operation in South Ossetia with 10,000–11,000 soldiers and 75 tanks. Several Russian peacekeepers were killed in the fighting, and many South Ossetians who had Russian citizenship. At the time of the attack, <mask> was on vacation and Putin was attending the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.At about 1:00 a.m on 8 August, <mask> held a telephone conversation with the Defence Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov. It is likely that during this conversation, <mask> authorised the use of force against Georgia. The next day, <mask> released a statement, in which he said:

In the early hours of 8 August, Russian military forces launched a counter-offensive against Georgian troops. After five days of heavy fighting, all Georgian forces were routed from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. On 12 August, <mask> announced an end to the Russian military operation, entitled "Operation to force Georgia into peace". Later on the same day, a peace deal brokered by the French and EU President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was signed between the warring parties. On 26 August, after being unanimously passed by the State Duma, <mask> signed a decree recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.The five-day conflict cost the lives of 48 Russian soldiers, including 10 peacekeepers, while the casualties for Georgia was 170 soldiers and 14 policemen. The Russian popular opinion of the military intervention was broadly positive, not just among the supporters of the government, but across the political spectrum. <mask>'s popularity ratings soared by around 10 percentage points to over 70%, due to what was seen as his effective handling of the war. Shortly in the aftermath of the conflict, <mask> Doctrine. On 30 September 2009, the European Union–sponsored Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia stated that, while preceded by months of mutual provocations, "open hostilities began with a large-scale Georgian military operation against the town of Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas, launched in the night of 7 to 8 August 2008." 2008–09 economic crisis
In September 2008, Russia was hit by repercussions of the global financial crisis. Before this, Russian officials, such as the Finance Minister, Alexei Kudrin, had said they believed Russia would be safe, due to its stable macroeconomic situation and substantial reserves accumulated during the years of growth.Despite this, the recession proved to be the worst in the history of Russia, and the country's GDP fell by over 8% in 2009. The government's response was to use over a trillion rubles (more than $40 billion U.S. Dollars) to help troubled banks, and initiated a large-scale stimulus programme, lending $50 billion to struggling companies. No major banks collapsed, and minor failures were handled in an effective way. The economic situation stabilised in 2009, but substantial growth did not resume until 2010. <mask>'s approval ratings declined during the crisis, dropping from 83% in September 2008 to 68% in April 2009, before recovering to 72% in October 2009 following improvements in the economy. According to some analysts, the economic crisis, together with the 2008 South Ossetia war, delayed <mask>'s liberal programme.Instead of launching the reforms, the government and the Presidency had to focus their efforts on anti-crisis measures and handling the foreign policy implications of the war. Domestic policy

Economy

In the economic sphere, <mask> has launched a modernisation programme which aims at modernising Russia's economy and society, decreasing the country's dependency on oil and gas revenues and creating a diversified economy based on high technology and innovation. The programme is based on the top 5 priorities for the country's technological development: efficient energy use; nuclear technology; information technology; medical technology and pharmaceuticals; and space technology in combination with telecommunications. In November 2010, on his annual speech to the Federal Assembly <mask> stressed for greater privatisation of unneeded state assets both at the federal and regional level, and that Russia's regions must sell-off non-core assets to help fund post-crisis spending, following in the footsteps of the state's planned $32 billion 3-year asset sales. <mask> said the money from privatisation should be used to help modernise the economy and the regions should be rewarded for finding their own sources of cash. <mask> has named technological innovation one of the key priorities of his presidency. In May 2009, <mask> established the Presidential Commission on Innovation, which he will personally chair every month.The commission comprises almost the entire Russian government and some of the best minds from academia and business. <mask> has also said that giant state corporations will inevitably be privatised, and although the state had increased its role in the economy in recent years, this should remain a temporary move. On 7 August 2009, <mask> instructed the Prosecutor General, Yury Chayka, and the Chief of the Audit Directorate of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Konstantin Chuychenko, to probe state corporations, a new highly privileged form of organisation earlier promoted by President Putin, to question their appropriateness. In June 2010, he visited the Twitter headquarters in Silicon Valley declaring a mission to bring more high-tech innovation and investment to the country. Police reform

<mask> made reforming Russia's law enforcement one of his top agendas, the reason for which was a shooting started by a police officer in April 2009 in one of Moscow's supermarkets. <mask> initiated the reform at the end of 2009, with a presidential decree issued on 24 December ordering the government to begin planning the reform. In early August 2010, a draft law was posted on the Internet at the address  for public discussion.The new website received more than 2,000 comments within 24 hours. Based on citizen feedback, several modifications to the draft were made. On 27 October 2010, President <mask> submitted the draft to the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma. The State Duma voted to approve the bill on 28 January 2011, and the upper house, the Federation Council followed suit on 2 February 2011. On 7 February 2011, President <mask> signed the bill into law. The changes came into effect on 1 March 2011. Under the reform, the salaries of Russian police officers were increased by 30%, Interior Ministry personnel were cut and financing and jurisdiction over the police were centralised.Around 217 billion rubles ($7 billion) were allocated to the police reform from the federal budget for the time frame 2012–2013. Anti-corruption campaign

On 19 May 2008, <mask> signed a decree on anti-corruption measures, which included creation of an Anti-Corruption Council. In the first meeting of the council on 30 September 2008, <mask> said:

In July 2008, <mask>'s National Anti-Corruption Plan was published in the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper. It suggested measures aimed at making sanctions for corruption more severe, such as legislation to disqualify state and municipal officials who commit minor corruption offences and making it obligatory for officials to report corruption. The plan ordered the government to prepare anti-corruption legislation based on these suggestions. The bill that followed, called On Corruption Counteraction was signed into law on 25 December 2008 as Federal Law N 273-FZ. According to Professor Richard Sakwa, "Russia now at last had serious, if flawed, legislation against corruption, which in the context was quite an achievement, although preliminary results were meagre."Russia's score in Corruption Perceptions Index rose from 2.1 in 2008 to 2.2 in 2009, which "could be interpreted as a mildly positive response to the newly adopted package of anti-corruption legislation initiated and promoted by president <mask> and passed by the Duma in December 2008", according to Transparency International's CPI 2009 Regional Highlights report. On 13 April 2010, <mask> signed presidential decree No. 460 which introduced the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, a midterm government policy, while the plan is updated every two years. The new strategy stipulated increased fines, greater public oversight of government budgets and sociological research. According to Georgy Satarov, president of the Indem think tank, the latest decree "probably reflected <mask>'s frustration with the fact that the 2008 plan had yielded little result." In January 2011, President <mask> admitted that the government had so far failed in its anti-corruption measures. On 4 May 2011, <mask> signed the Federal Law On Amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation to Improve State Anti-Corruption Management.The bill raised fines for corruption to up to 100 times the amount of the bribe given or received, with the maximum fine being 500 million rubles ($18.3 million). Education

President <mask> initiated a new policy called "Our New School" and instructed the government to present a review on the implementation of the initiative every year. Development of the political system

Regional elections held on 1 March 2009 were followed by accusations of administrative resources being used in support of United Russia candidates, with the leader of A Just Russia, Sergey Mironov, being especially critical. Responding to this, <mask> met with the chairman of the Central Election Commission of Russia, Vladimir Churov, and called for moderation in the use of administrative resources. In August 2009, <mask> promised to break the near-dominant position of United Russia party in national and regional legislatures, stating that "New democratic times are beginning". The next regional elections were held on 11 October 2009 and won by United Russia with 66% of the vote. The elections were again harshly criticised for the use of administrative resources in favour of United Russia candidates.Communist, LDPR and A Just Russia parliamentary deputies staged an unprecedented walkout on 14–15 October 2009 as a result. Although <mask> often promised to stand up for more political pluralism, Professor Richard Sakwa observed, after the 2009 regional elections, a gulf formed between <mask>'s words and the worsening situation, with the question arising "whether Medvedev had the desire or ability to renew Russia's political system." On 26 October 2009, the First Deputy Chief of Staff, Vladislav Surkov, warned that democratic experiments could result in more instability and that more instability "could rip Russia apart". On 6 November 2010, <mask> vetoed a recently passed bill which restricted antigovernment demonstrations. The bill, passed on 22 October, prohibited anyone who had previously been convicted of organising an illegal mass rally from seeking permission to stage a demonstration. In late November 2010, <mask> made a public statement about the damage being done to Russia's politics by the dominance of the United Russia party. He claimed that the country faced political stagnation if the ruling party would "degrade" if not challenged; "this stagnation is equally damaging to both the ruling party and the opposition forces."In the same speech, he said Russian democracy was "imperfect" but improving. BBC Russian correspondents reported that this came on the heels of discontent in political circles and opposition that the authorities, in their view, had too much control over the political process. In his first State of the Nation address to the Russian parliament on 5 November 2008, <mask> proposed to change the Constitution of Russia in order to increase the terms of the President and State Duma from four to six and five years respectively (see 2008 Amendments to the Constitution of Russia). <mask> on 8 May 2009, proposed to the legislature and on 2 June signed into law an amendment whereby the chairperson of the Constitutional Court and his deputies would be proposed to the parliament by the president rather than elected by the judges, as was the case before. In May 2009, <mask> set up the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests. In August of the same year, he stated his opposition to the equating of Stalinism with Nazism. <mask> denied the involvement of the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Poland together with Nazi Germany.Arguments of the European Union and of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were called a lie. <mask> said it was Joseph Stalin who in fact "ultimately saved Europe". On 30 October 2009, due to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, President <mask> published a statement in his video blog. He stressed that the memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victory. <mask> recalled that for twenty of the pre-war years entire layers and classes of the Russian people were destroyed (this period includes the Red Terror mainly under the lead of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the crimes of Joseph Stalin and other evil deeds of the Soviet Bolsheviks). Nothing can take precedence over the value of human life, said the President. In a speech on 15 September 2009, <mask> stated that he approved of the abolition in 2004 of direct popular elections of regional leaders, effectively in favour of their appointment by the Kremlin, and added that he didn't see a possibility of a return to direct elections even in 100 years.Election law changes

In 2009, <mask> proposed an amendment to the election law which would decrease the State Duma election threshold from 7% to 5%. The amendment was signed into law in Spring 2009. Parties receiving more than 5% but less than 6% of the votes would henceforward be guaranteed one seat, while parties receiving more than 6% but less than 7% will get two seats. These seats will be allocated before the seats for parties with over 7% support. Russian election law stipulates that parties with representatives in the State Duma are free to put forward a list of candidates for the Duma elections, while parties with no current representation need first to collect signatures. Under the 2009 amendments initiated by <mask>, the number of signatures required was lowered from 200,000 to 150,000 for the 2011 Duma elections. In subsequent elections, only 120,000 signatures will be required.Foreign policy

In August, during the third month of <mask>'s presidency, Russia took part in the 2008 South Ossetia war with Georgia, which drove tension in Russia–United States relations to a post–Cold War high. On 26 August, following a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly of Russia, <mask> issued a presidential decree officially recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, an action condemned by the G8. On 31 August 2008, <mask> announced a shift in the Russian foreign policy under his government, built around five main principles:

 Fundamental principles of international law are supreme. The world will be multipolar. Russia will not seek confrontation with other nations. Russia will protect its citizens wherever they are. Russia will develop ties in friendly regions.In his address to the parliament on 5 November 2008 he also promised to deploy the Iskander missile system and radar-jamming facilities in Kaliningrad Oblast to counter the U.S. missile defence system in Eastern Europe. Following U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement on 17 September 2009, that Washington would not deploy missile-defense elements in the Czech Republic and Poland, <mask> said he decided against deploying Iskander missiles in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast. On 21 November 2011, <mask> claimed

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