HETEROCYCLES, Vol. 103, No. 1, 2021, pp.65 - 93. © 2021 The Japan Institute of Heterocyclic Chemistry Received, 23rd April, 2020 Accepted, 20th July, 2020, Published online, 27th October, 2020 1 DOI: 10.3987/REV-20-SR(K)1 RECENT ADVANCES IN THE MICROWAVE ASSISTED SYNTHESIS OF BENZOFURAN AND INDOLE DERIVATIVES Thaipparambil Aneeja, a Sankaran Radhika, a C M A Afsina, a and Gopinathan Anilkumar a * a School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Priyadarsini Hills PO., Kottayam, Kerala INDIA. 686560, Fax: +91-481-2731036, E-mail: anilgi1@yahoo.com, anil@mgu.ac.in Dedicated with great respect to Professor Yasuyuki Kita for his outstanding contributions in Organic Synthesis Abstract – Microwave (MW) assisted syntheses are environment friendly, efficient, rapid and convenient methodology for the synthesis of organic compounds. Benzene ring fused to a five membered ring containing N or O atom exhibits wide range of biological activities. Benzofuran is present in polymers, pharmaceuticals, and bioactive natural products. Benzofuran is significant as insecticides, herbicides, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral agents. Indoles are well known scaffold showing noteworthy activities like anti-tumor, anti-viral, anti-microbial and anti-oxidant. Indole derivatives are valuable moiety in different therapeutically active drug molecules. On account of the biological significance of benzofuran and indole scaffold, this review describes the recent advances in microwave assisted synthesis of benzofurans and indoles, and covers literature from 2012-2020. 1. INTRODUCTION Benzofuran and indole are aromatic heterocyclic organic compounds with a bicyclic structure, consisting of a benzene ring fused to a five membered ring containing a heteroatom such as O or N respectively. 1 The enormous biological activities of these heterocycles encouraged medicinal chemists to design more efficient and green protocols towards its synthesis. 2 The aspect of green chemistry turned the attention of scientific community to microwave assisted methodology and succeeded in applying this strategy to organic synthesis. 3,4 Microwave assisted organic synthesis resulted in rapid and selective reactions under uniform heating process. 5 HETEROCYCLES, Vol. 103, No. 1, 2021 65