My parents, who applied for visitor visa online from India in the 3rd week of June, got passport request on Aug 4. Passports sent to CIC Bangalore on Aug 5. No news since then.
I don't think either that CIC operates as per the travel dates mentioned by applicants. For instance, when my parents applied in June to travel in the first week of Aug, the approximate processing time as published on the CIC website was 23 days. But now it's almost 60 days and well past the travel date mentioned in the covering letter.
From what I can read here, parvisingh's case seems to be the oldest. Not sure if he received any answer ??