A study was undertaken to examine the interactive effects of rice genotypes, media composition and desiccation treatment on regeneration frequency (RF) and total number of regenerated plantlets (green shoot induction, GSI). Out of four tested genotypes, the aromatic indica rice variety Pusa Sugandh2 (PS2) showed similar regeneration frequency (94±12.81) and green shoot induction (387.33±2.91) on RM-1 medium as that of japonica genotype Taipei309 (TP309), which was significantly higher than those in Pusa Basmati1 (PB1) and IR64. The better performing genotype (PS2) was subjected to genetic transformation using AtDREB1A by biolistic method. The regeneration frequency of transformed embryogenic calli of PS2 was found to be 87.02% which was not significantly different from non-transformed embryogenic calli of PS2, where as 50% lower frequency was observed in case of GSI (178.66±0.28). Successful transformants were analysed by PCR using hptII and DREB specific primers. High frequency regeneration coupled with genetic transformation makes PS2 a preferred genotype for large scale functional validation of candidate genes in transgenics.