Rice is the staple food for more than half of the worlds population. Abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity limit rice production under rainfed environments, which comprise about 45 per cent of the global rice area. Increasing salinization of agricultural land causes toxic effects in plant development, primarily at the seedling level. Hence developing suitable rice genotypes for salinity prone areas will help us to stabilize the yield under the rainfed / water limited environments. Thus, there is a need for identifying, cloning and validating functional genes and transcriptional...