the parboiling treatment significantly increased the DPPH radical scavenging activity from 44.32% to 45.62% for Jehlum cultivar, from 47.06% to 48.79% for SKAU-345 and 46.16% to 48.50% for SKAU-382 cultivar; whereas, it decreased to 40.63%, 43.29% and 41.28% for respective cultivars during puffing. Increase in antioxidant activity during parboiling can be attributed to the formation of brown pigments by the maillard reaction, which has been reported to have potential antioxidant activity