The National Human Rights Commission held a meeting of Chairpersons Members and representatives of various National Human Rights Institutions and the State Human Rights Commissions of India, who were present in New Delhi for the Symposium on Torture, on 24 September 1999. Among those present were Judge Aurora Recina from the Philippines, Mr. Jody Kollapen from South Africa, Ms. Meredith Wilkie from Australia, Mr. T. Suntheralingam from South Africa, Mr. Budin Sampurna from Indonesia, Mr. K.M. Haque from Bangladesh, the Chairpersons and Members of the SHRC’ s of Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam and the Chairperson and Members of NHRC.

Speaking on the occasion, Chairperson Mr.Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah stressed that the National Commissions and the State Commissions should coordinate their efforts to carry out a concerted programme to deal with human rights violations. They should jointly think of ways of tapping the immense talents of civil society. They should also persuade Governments and political organisations to have "transparent, credible, independent and effective in-house mechanisms to reform the political and administrative machineries".

Views were exchanged on the problems being faced by the various Commissions represented at the meeting and ideas were explored on ways to make National and State-level institutions more effective in their functioning.