India awaits Canadian response on visa row

New Delhi: After years of inaction the policy making establishment in North and South Block appears to have woken up to a serial insult of the nation's security forces personnel by a nation of little consequence like Canada.

It has now been confirmed that the Canadian government has been provided a ''few days'' to consider issuing an apology, retracting vicious comments designed to cast the work of the nation's security agencies and armed forces in a negative light and also to initiate action against embassy officials who have been issuing these commentaries and denying  visas at will.

The matter has come to light only after TV channels broke the story a few days back. It remains unexplained how the country's external affairs ministry allowed such serial offensive action to carry on unhindered all these years.

Apparently affected Indian officers who were denied these visas, and issued insulting reasons for the denial, had complained to the ministry which showed no signs of initiating remedial action.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to visit Canada next month for the G-20 summit. India and Canada are also due to sign a civil nuclear deal.

Reports suggest the denial of visa on extraneous grounds by the Canadian embassy has been going on for atleast two years.