Dr. Craig L. Dicker, Minister Counselor, Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy, New Delhi is visited the CHRIST (Deemed to be University) on August 2, 2016. A senior most American officer in the U.S. Embassy for the whole of India. Prior to arriving in India was as the Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul.  Since joining the Foreign Service in 1992, Craig served in public affairs sections at U.S. embassies in South Africa, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Hungary and Turkey.  He also served in Washington in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Craig earned his B.A. (History), M.A. (History) and Ph.D. (Applied Linguistics) from Columbia University in New York.  Prior to joining the foreign service, he taught in secondary schools in New York and Portugal and at universities in New York and Pristina, Kosovo (as a Fulbright scholar) .   Craig speaks Turkish, Azerbaijani, Indonesian and Serbo-Croatian Dr. Dicker lead a lecture discussion with students and faculty on the “U.S. Electoral Processes” with a special reference to the Presidential Elections in the United States in November 2016. Dr. Craig was welcomed by the Venugopal B. Menon faculty Department International studies and History.

His talk focused on Political Party Conventions & Campaign in the America. He also explained the complicated nature of indirect elections in the United States.
Finance Reform (or lack thereof).The focus was on the funding of Presidential elections.
PACs and Super-PACs. The role of Political action Committee.
Uses of the internet-the methods of campaign.
Electoral College and Election of the President.
Checks and Balances/Balance of Power: Limits to what a President can and can’t do.
Contending with the Bureaucracy: A challenge faced by American Presidents
The talk was followed by a lengthy Interaction with the students and teachers and the session concluded with a memento presentation to Dr. Craig by Father Benny, Director School of law and vote of thanks by Ms. Riya  Bava of second year MA IS student.

INDIA AND GANDHI : AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE            

Dr. Mike Stefancic, Assistant director for student support, Service-learning programme, Boise state university, USA has given a lecture on Gandhi and India; American Perspective on 2 August 2016. He spoke extensively on Gandhi and his ideas how his principles influence  American society. He viewed that in India people know more about Gandhi, and I often hear is he is astonishingly good at helping to win Indian independence. Mr Mike  also spoke about Gandhian principals like Satyagraha and non-violence how those two principles influenced the mind set of Americans.