<p>Brown spot disease in rice [co. <i>Cochliobolus miyabeanus</i>] is considered as a secondary disease in rice. However, the complete yield losses reported in famines associated with this disease is not reported for any other disease or any problem reported yet in rice. Hence, investigations aimed at identification of valuable genetic resources primarily the diverse resistant sources and the markers strongly linked to the resistant genes are no doubt a potential contribution in rapid development of high yielding resistant lines/cultivar. A better understanding on resistant sources based on phenotypic screening and molecular characterization of genotype is quite worthy in assisting the plant breeders in identification of genotypes that homed valuable alleles and in selection of parents for hybridization aimed at pyramiding diverse resistant genes for durable management of resistant genes. In this view, the present study was conducted with the objective of identification of diverse resistant sources and validation of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers linked with resistance to brown spot disease. The investigation involved phenotypic screening of 300 genotypes of rice and their categorization in various categories of disease reaction based on the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) score. Further, based on AUDPC score under controlled condition 15 most resistant and most susceptible genotypes were used for molecular characterization using 18 linked polymorphic markers. 6 primers out of 18 primers included in the study were validated using simple regression approach and could be used to differentiate the resistant lines from the susceptible that would support marker assisted selection of brown spot resistance lines.</p>