fees are charged on the complaints addressed to it and these can be sent by any available means to the Commission, in any of the languages of the Republic. No institution or nation genuinely striving to serve the cause of human rights can ever 2.5 do enough. The Commission is no exception; it is functioning in a country of one billion people, unparalleled pluralism and sub-continentalproportions. In such circumstances, the Commission cannot but be acutely aware of its own short-comings and inadequacies, given the immensity of the hopes now reposed in it and the dimensions of the problems it must confront. Growing faith in the Commission, and the yearning for redressel of grievances, is best 2.6. illustrated in the number of complaints received by the Commission. Starting with 496 in the first six month after it was established, the Commission received 40,723 in the twelve months under review, namely 1 April 1998 - 31 March 1999. While complaints from the State of Uttar Pradesh - the most populous in the nation and still without a State-level Human Rights Commission accomted for 54% of these complaints, the Commission received complaints from all twenty five States of the Union and all but one of the Union Territories, Lakshwadeep being the sole exception. The Commission recalls that, in its earlier years, various militant groups had forbidden the submission of complaints to the Commission, even under the threat of violence. That situation has changed. In the past months, the Commission has received complaints from all segments of society and political persuasion, including militant groups and some of those who lead them. It has sought to deal with complaints from the latter with the same degree of rectitude and swiftness that it has tried to bring to bear to the handling of all other complaints. - 2.7. The challenge that the Commission now faces is no longer that of scepticism but of scale and expectation. In five and a half years it has already received a total of 1,15,706 complaint6 and has dealt with or initiated action in respect of all but 7,175 of them by the end of March 1999. This has required prodigious effort and the setting-up of systems to deal with the immense case-load, which is far in excess of that handled by any other National Institution for human rights any where else in the world. It is often asked, in this connection, whether the decisions and recommendations of the Commission are, in fact, acted upon by those to whom they are addressed. An answer can, illustratively, be provided by referring to the 176 cases in which the Commission has, over the past five years, specifically directed the payment of interim compensation of an amount totaling Rs,1,33,84,500/-. In all but one case, the concerned authorities complied with the Commission's directims, sometimes after questioning them or seeking clarifications. In the solitary case where the State Government sought to reverse the decision of the Commission 2.8