Thirty-four rice geneticists under the guidance Bin Han at the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other Research Institutes  including one in Japan published a research article entitled, “A map of rice genomic variation reveals the origin of cultivated rice,” in the 3rd October online issue of Nature. This publication based on the study of 446 geographically diverse types of wild rice (O. rufipogon) and 1,083 varieties of japonica and indica seems to have resolved the controversy whether the rice subspecies japonica and indica have polyphyletic or monophyletic origin. The results as determined by the authors following unraveling of the base sequences suggest that Oryza sativa subspecies japonica was first domesticated from a specific population of O. rufipogon around the middle area of the Pearl River in southern China, and that Oryza sativa indica rice  developed  subsequently from crosses between japonica rice and local wild rice concomitant with the dispersion of the initial cultivars into South East and South Asia.  The authors identified 55 distinctive  taxa which evolved during domestication. The authors have described these groups as selective sweeps. The authors determined the domestication-associated traits through high-resolution genetic mapping.  The results of this comprehensive study will provide a handy and reliable tool to rice breeders from the point of view of an effective genomics approach in order to achieve their goal of evolving rice varieties suitable to different agro-ecological regions of the world.