Medvedev to chair modernization commission meeting

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will on Monday chair a meeting of the economy modernization commission in Dimitrovgrad in the Ulyanovsk Region on the Volga without apparently disfavored billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. The meeting will focus on specialist training on priority directions of the Russian economy's modernization and technological development, the presidential press service reported. Russian businessman and ex-leader of the Right Cause liberal party Prokhorov, known in particular for his Yo-mobile hybrid car innovation project, has been excluded from the commission, the Kremlin press office said on Sunday. The presidential commission on modernization of the economy was established in May 2009 to work out a state policy to upgrade the economy, technologically develop it, coordinate the activity of federal agencies, executive power and local self-government bodies as well as businessmen and experts. Prokhorov, 46, ranked by Forbes as Russia's third richest man with a fortune of $18 billion, formally quit business in June to head the Right Cause party. In mid-September, however, Prokhorov quit the post of the party leader after he and his supporters accused some party members of illegally registering new members in his absence to win a majority and vote against his leadership. Speaking to reporters after he was voted out during the party's general congress on September 15, Prokhorov accused Vladislav Surkov, a long-serving Kremlin ideologist, of "privatizing" the country's political system and behaving like a "puppet-master."