The Constitution of India guarantees individual freedoms through its fundamental rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy articulate policies that can be undertaken by the governments to ensure these rights are honoured. Development initiatives through policies must ideally advance these principles. It therefore becomes important to interrogate how the development paradigms and policies that have been adopted have impacted socio-economic inequality and capacities of individuals. Therefore one needs to be in constant conversation with the triad of transparency, accountability, and participatory democracy vis-a-vis government programmes and actions. The first course of the Interdisciplinary Studies (IS) in Data, Democracy and Development called ​“Development as Freedom” will explore these ideas by anchoring the discussion on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach.