The long-running children's educational show featuring colourful puppets is to have an Indian adaptation.

Aired in over 120 countries and with more than 20 local versions, Sesame Street helps teach pre-schoolers numbers and words using cartoons and puppets.

The show has different educational storylines and characters around the world, to reflect issues affecting children in specific countries.

The New York-based Sesame Workshop, a non-profit educational group, has sent its people to India to talk to teachers, broadcasters, government agencies and non-governmental organisations about how to develop the Indian adaptation of the show.

The United States Agency for International Development (USaid) has given a grant of $500,000 to Sesame Workshop to design and develop the Indian version.

"We will create local Indian Muppets. They will be characters that will engage Indian children and whom they will be able to relate to.

"We will need to work with local experts to explore the look and personalities of these characters," Beatrice Chow, a spokesperson at Sesame Workshop said.

The producers of the show for India are looking at developing characters which will highlight pressing local issues.

"Some of these issues are education of the girl child, ethnic differences, health and hygiene. So the Muppets for the Indian version could be multi-dimensional, encompassing many issues," says the show's project director for India, Isheeta Ganguly.

International versions of Sesame Street are given their own Muppets to reflect local issues.

In the Egyptian adaptation, girl Muppet Khokhawants to be an astronaut or a doctor and serves as a female role model.

The South African version of the popular children's TV series has an HIV-positive character called Kami to encourage acceptance of people living with the virus.

"Its one of our strongest shows," says Rajen Soni, who markets the network beaming Sesame Street in India.

"Lots of pre-schoolers wake up early to catch the show at 7.30 am."

(Agencies)