Features

A life in the law: some hurtful experiences of a Lankan lawyer in Australia

Published

4 years ago

2022/08/28

Foreword By the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG

The first part of this book is an extended snapshot of the privileged life that the author led within a notable legal family in post-colonial Ceylon. It tells the story of his decision to pursue his higher education at Cambridge University in England; and his return to Colombo with a good degree but modest prospects. How he slowly but surely built up a busy and varied practice as a barrister, becoming “one of the leading junior counsel in the country.” How he suffered various slights because he had formed a happy and enduring marriage, not only out of his caste but out of his race (his wife being of Italian descent). And how “in a fit of insanity” he decided to quit Sri Lanka, as his birthplace had by then been renamed, to migrate to Australia, and to embark on the risky project of re-establishing his legal practice in Melbourne.

In part, his unusual step of moving to Australia was a response to a change of government in his homeland and the commitment of the new government to switch the language of the courts from English to Sinhalese, in which he felt less competent. In part, it seems to have been a response to the hostility shown on racial grounds to his wife, an irony because of what was to follow. These early chapters of the book are like a black and white, or maybe sepia, film of days of inherited privilege that flowed because of his father, who had become one of the leading Queen’s Counsel of the country. Right up to the time of his departure, the young Nimal would rely on a servant to squeeze toothpaste on his morning toothbrush, a luxury I had formerly thought was reserved for the Prince of Wales.

The second, and major, part of the book recounts the story of a struggle, as the newly arrived advocate found that the tales of the success of those who had gone before were greatly exaggerated, if not downright false. For a short time, he worked in a large Melbourne solicitors’ office where it was his misfortune to be bullied and disrespected, often apparently on the grounds of his race and skin colour. He took the advice of the bullies who encouraged him with the news that an earlier employee, “similarly without brains”, had gained admission to the Victorian Bar. He had taken up personal injury work and was doing surprisingly well, enjoying unmerited success which might also come his way at the independent Bar.

Fortunately, at this point, the author struck gold in the advice he was given by Peter Heerey; the examples he observed in Brian Shaw QC, Neil McPhee QC and Jeffrey Sher QC; and particular friendships that were extended to him by leaders of the Bar, like Robert Brooking QC and Louis Voumard QC. The latter was the author of the classic Australian text on land law, recognized as one of the great legal textbooks written in Australia.

After a short interval, the author was to become a research assistant for new editions, updating the text and later assuming responsibility for its continuance in new editions. When he suffered bleak moments of self-doubt and hostility, he reminded himself of the distinctions of his father-hero; of his fine education in England; and of the engagement and respect he had won from Voumard and a few other doyens of the Bar in Melbourne.

Sadly, there were many grim moments throughout his long career as junior counsel in Victoria. The centerpiece of this part of the book is the story of his struggle to establish his professional credentials in the face of what he felt, and describes, as a consistent pattern of hostility, frequently served cold with clearly racist language against which he reacted with protest, complaints and resentment that remains to this day.

The magistrate who had asked him to spell his name (which he had shortened against the notorious difficulties that Anglophones often suffer with foreign words) but who repeatedly called him “Mr Nkrumah”, seemingly because he was dark-skinned like the then president of newly independent Ghana, Dr Nkrumah; the leading counsel who refused to add him to his clerk’s list because he was sure it would not bring work to its members; the foul-mouthed barrister who would greet him with the words “Hello Blackie!; the young upstart barrister, who (thinking it amusing) greeted him in company, blurting out, “Hello Sambo. Down from your tree?” Or the County Court judge who called him “My jungle friend”; the youthful unfamiliar barrister who found him inspecting new chambers dressed in jeans and demanded to know what he was doing there, as if he had no place in the hallowed halls of his betters; the senior judge who, in answer to a protest, told him: “If you can’t take what I did to you, you should leave the Bar”; and even a Melbourne tram driver, who was delayed momentarily by the author’s driving in traffic, shouted at him: “You fucking black bastard. Move your fucking black arse!”

These are but a few of the many events that have obviously left deep scars on the author. Yet, at an early stage, he was counselled by Dick McGarvie QC, already a leader of the Victorian Bar and later to be Governor of Victoria, who advised him: “Nimal, when you are in the right, always make waves” Others taught him by their example, like Jeffrey Sher QC, who gathered fame by answering judicial bullies with firm insistence: “I will not tolerate your rudeness.” So when the author suffered intolerable overbearing conduct by public officials, he would, as his life progressed, take it up, complain, record the wrongdoing and insist on a response.

As he acknowledges, in many cases where he had been bullied in argument the judge in question faithfully applied the law and he won the case. Particular judges are singled out for their invariable courtesy. Some even progressed to personal friendship. Occasionally, this was only because the author earned a way by performance into the judge’s esteem. Sometimes, he acknowledges, those who once bullied him later became quite fond of him. Still, we are left in doubt as to whether that feeling was reciprocated. Sometimes, one suspects, he found the earlier “dreadful times” that he experienced at the hands of judges – commonly attributed to racial hostility – just too hard to bear. And that explains why he has written this book with his selected memories, many of which are hurtful and painful, years after the exchanges that he recounts.

Because my own early judicial appointments were long ago and initially federal in nature, I came to know many Victorian judges and barristers, mostly senior people. Some of them became my friends. For me, there were none of the egregious instances of verbal violence and denigration recorded in the book, so I have no way of judging the accuracy and completeness of the events recorded. Nor is that my function in writing this Foreword. The manuscript that I have been given is, in parts, brutal and harsh. It names names. In at least three instances, the barristers singled out for racial hostility and inappropriate conduct were known to, and respected by, me. Even where some of those named may now be dead, their families live on. Those concerned have no opportunity to put their side of the evidentiary recollections.

The author confronts this issue by acknowledging the problem. He admits the good times he sometimes experienced in the “unity of the Bar” He acknowledges the general integrity of the legal institutions. As an outsider, whose practice at the Bar was originally almost wholly in New South Wales, I find it difficult to believe that things would have been more confrontational and racist in Victoria than they were in the New South Wales of my youth. North of the Murray River, the Victorian Bar was considered more genteel and English (despite the much coveted Irish rosette worn by its silks).

The author accepts that, in writing this book, he was advised to avoid the naming of names. He was warned that identifying claimed offenders would be seen by many as, in effect, “letting down the team”: washing the dirty linen of the legal profession in public. Essentially, this point of view recognizes the foibles of the human actors who invariably make up all branches of the legal profession, wherever it exists. It points to the inescapable stress and tension that most days in court involve for participants, including judges, barristers, instructing solicitors, clerks and, let us not forget, the clients.

The author acknowledges that there may be reasons for removing at least some names (particularly of the living). He may yet do this. However, he insists, in effect, that only by identifying bullies and racists will their misconduct be effectively extirpated from the law. By joining in the conspiracy of silence, those who know the offenders and stay silent contribute to the persistence and survival of conduct that is wrong – sometimes evil.

In my own case, my recollections of racist actions and slurs at the Bar in New South Wales are few. But I was not walking in the author’s shoes. My recollections of hurt and humiliation relate mainly to sexuality. They extended throughout my career, right to the close of my service in the High Court of Australia. A sprinkling of these I have written up and publicly discussed, including the homophobic attack on me in the Senate of the Australian Parliament. Others have related to early experiences received at the hands of particular judges. But for the most part, the daily slings and arrows have been forgotten. They have been drowned out by larger struggles, designed to confront the continuing wrongs to sexual and other minorities in global and usually in reformative terms.

Towards the end of the book, the author questions whether he ought, decades earlier, to have started a movement similar to that initiated to advance the rights of women at the Bar in Australia: in his case, to advance the rights of racial minorities at the Bar. I had a similar thought five years ago when confronted by the under-representation in the higher echelons of the judiciary and legal profession of racial minorities, particularly those whose ethnicity derives from Asia. This was measured in terms of the shortfall (compared with more than 10 per cent of the Australian population who acknowledge derivation from Asia in the national census) who are making it to the judiciary, to appointments as Queen’s Counsel, to partnerships in top-tier and middle-ranking law firms, and even to summer clerkships. My public questioning of these systemic failures helped to lead to the creation of the Asian/Australian Lawyers’ Association. This is now a body active throughout the nation. There is some evidence that this initiative is at last having the kind of impact that the author yearns for. Perhaps we both should have done more, earlier.

This brings me to the third, and final, part of the book. It includes the closing period in the author’s legal career, the death of his father, his belated appointment as Senior Counsel in Victoria and then as Queen’s Counsel. A final dream then came true: a short appointment to serve on the Court of Appeal of Fiji at the age of seventy-nine. Clearly, he feels that judicial preferment and access to the silken robe were earlier denied or delayed to him unfairly. He suggests that the size and variety of his legal practice by the end merited more opportunities than came his way. His long service in editing Voumard’s distinguished book haunts him with disappointments over opportunities lost.

Many other lawyers probably feel such disappointments. Few express their feelings because this is seen as an unseemly challenge to the majesty of the system. Once again, the author has made his own call on this. He was proud to receive his rosette as Queen’s Counsel. It made him, with his father, the only (certainly a very rare) instance of Senior Counsel of our tradition, father and son appointed in different jurisdictions of the world. He is honest enough to admit that the heavy workload involved in writing his judicial opinions in the month in Fiji left him “completely exhausted” If earlier that had been his lot in life, it would have had its down sides.

Some readers, in and outside the legal profession, will, for differing reasons, consider that the author should have kept his memoirs to the familiar self-congratulatory level that is usual in such biographies. Some will see a long catalogue of personal animosities as unbecoming to a senior member of a “learned profession” Some will feel embarrassed to read the stories of inner hurt that are usually kept to oneself.

On the other hand, this book presents the author’s perspective of his life in the Australian legal profession over the last 50 years. Even if many of the suggested instances of racism and bullying can be put down to hypersensitivity or paranoia on the part of the author, the residue that remains is still shocking. Shockingly, his story usually has the ring of truth.

When the author left Sri Lanka to come to Australia, he was warned by many confreres that Australia was, and to some extent still is, a land with a deep stain of racism. This is what has led him on occasion to call his transfer to his adopted home “an extremely hard time to endure” If he had but lightly researched the long history of anti-Asian attitudes in Australia, not to say prejudice against brilliant migrants of dark skin colour, and chilling prejudice against the Indigenous people, it would have alerted him to the risks he was running in moving to Melbourne.

On the other hand, this “godforsaken country” as he finally calls Australia eventually afforded the author notable opportunities. Perhaps he feels an obligation, before it is too late, to record “the hard time” he suffered too long and too silently so that his fellow citizens in Australia can learn from his experiences. The huge demonstrations that have broken out in 2020 in the United States of America, insisting “Black Lives Matter”, have had their counterparts in Australia. They are a sign that racial discrimination exists, is intolerable, and that the victims are now standing up and gathering many friends and supporters. Enough is, at last, enough.

A few of the author’s later expressed viewpoints, about women’s advancement in the law, and ideas like a return of flogging to deal with road rage, do not add lustre to his thoughts. But his book is certainly readable. At times it is entertaining. Often it is a tale of hurt. But it is when people in minorities stand against the tide that they may help to change the world. To that extent, uncomfortable reading as it sometimes is, it is good that Nimal Wikramanayake has written his story. We can learn from it. We can extrapolate the lesson about racism to a larger focus. It also applies to discrimination against women, gays, disabled people and others. In a noble profession like law, such lessons need to be learned and remembered. That is why it is sometimes useful for the pain to be written down, so that it will not be repeated and not be forgotten.

Michael Kirby, 22 June 2020

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Features

The Digital Underground

Published

17 hours ago

2026/07/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

Illegal Foreign Exchange, Undiyal, Hawala and Money Laundering, A Four-Part Investigative Series

Forex Platforms, Cryptocurrency, AI and the New Financial Battlefield

THE INVISIBLE FINANCIAL EMPIRE – PART III

The Boyfriend Who Was Never Real

Priya, a 34-year-old professional in Colombo, met “David” on LinkedIn. He claimed to work in fintech in Singapore. For six weeks they exchanged messages daily, about work, about life, about a recent trip he had taken to the Maldives. Eventually, the conversation turned, gently and naturally, to money.

“I’ve been trading on this platform, let me show you,” he said, sharing a screenshot of a sleek trading dashboard showing consistent, impressive returns.

Priya invested a small amount first, $500. Within days, her dashboard showed it had grown to $650. She withdrew $100 successfully, just to test it. It worked. Encouraged, she invested more. Then more. Over two months, she transferred a total of $42,000 into the platform.

When she tried to withdraw her full balance, the platform demanded a “regulatory release fee” of $8,000 before funds could be unlocked. She paid it. Then another fee appeared. Then the platform stopped responding altogether. “David” vanished. The trading dashboard, the customer support chat, the entire brokerage, all of it had never been real.

This is what investigators now call “pig butchering”, and, in 2026, the most disturbing development is not the scam itself, which has existed for years, but what now powers it: artificial intelligence has industrialised the entire operation.

From Manual Fraud to Machine-Generated Deception

For most of the past decade, romance-and-investment scams, like the one that targeted Priya, required enormous manual labour. Scam operations, many of them staffed by trafficked workers held against their will in compounds across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, needed real humans to build relationships with victims over weeks, manage fake trading platforms, and respond convincingly to questions.

That labour-intensive model has now been substantially automated. According to financial-crime researchers tracking this shift through 2026, threat actors are standing up entire AI-generated “brokerage” experiences end-to-end, complete with KYC onboarding, branded customer-service chat, animated portfolio dashboards, and falsified live market data feeds, and operating them at industrial scale against multiple victims simultaneously. Generative-AI relationship managers now front the WhatsApp and Telegram conversations that once required real human scammers. AI-cloned regulator letters are generated on demand to justify the fake “release fees” that drain victims a final time before the platform disappears.

What has changed is not the deception itself, it is the production economics. The cost of running a credible synthetic brokerage against one additional victim has collapsed, meaning a single criminal network can now run hundreds of “Davids” simultaneously, each one indistinguishable from a genuine fintech professional until it is too late. (Figure 01)

Sri Lanka: From Victim Pool to Operating Base

Sri Lanka’s relationship to this global scam economy has shifted in an alarming direction over the past two years. The country is no longer only a source of victims, it has become an operating base for the criminal networks themselves.

In April, 2026, Sri Lankan police raided a five-star hotel property, in Ambakandavila, and arrested 150 individuals, including 133 Chinese nationals, 13 Vietnamese nationals, and one Malaysian national, allegedly running a cyber fraud centre with links to international criminal syndicates, based in Myanmar and Cambodia. Investigators say the operation followed a now-familiar regional pattern: recruiters advertise “online marketing” or “data entry” jobs on social media to lure foreign workers to Sri Lanka, confiscate their passports on arrival, and force them to operate scam campaigns under threat.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has formally flagged pig-butchering scams as a “developing threat,” warning that foreign scam networks are increasingly targeting overseas nationals through scam farms operating from Sri Lankan soil. A 2026 United Nations report estimated that at least 300,000 people have been trafficked into scam centres across Southeast Asia.

This is not an abstract international problem. It is unfolding in hotels and rented properties across the country, exploiting the same infrastructure, high-speed internet, affordable accommodation, accessible tourist visas, that Sri Lanka has built to attract legitimate digital businesses and tourists.

Where the Money Actually Goes: The Stablecoin Pipeline

Behind every successful pig-butchering scam sits a laundering pipeline that has been transformed almost as dramatically as the scams themselves, and the transformation has a single dominant feature: stablecoins.

According to the Financial Action Task Force’s March 2026, report, drawing on analysis from blockchain intelligence firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs, stablecoins accounted for 84% of the USD 154 billion in illicit virtual asset transaction volume recorded in 2025, the highest share ever observed, and a dramatic jump from just 15% only a few years earlier. TRM Labs separately found that illicit entities received USD 141 billion in stablecoins, in 2025 alone, the highest level observed in five years. (See Table 01)

The scale of state-level abuse is striking. A Russian sanctions-evasion network built around the ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 processed more than USD 72 billion in total volume in 2025.

Fighting Fire with Fire: AI on the Defensive Side

The same artificial intelligence reshaping financial crime is also, out of necessity, reshaping the defence against it. Legacy anti-money laundering systems, built on static, rule-based thresholds, have proven badly outmatched by AI-generated fraud operating at machine speed. Research cited by compliance technology analysts suggests that between 90% and 95% of alerts generated by legacy AML systems are false positives, consuming enormous investigator time while genuinely suspicious activity slips through.

This is not a frictionless transition. AI models are notoriously difficult to explain to regulators and examiners in the way traditional rule-based systems are. The practical compromise emerging across the industry is a hybrid model: AI handles the initial scoring and prioritisation of risk, while documented rule-based logic still governs the final decision that must be defensible to a regulator.

The Regulatory Response: Catching Up to the Digital Frontier

Regulators worldwide have begun moving to close the most dangerous gaps exposed by this digital transformation of financial crime. (See Table 02)

What Comes Next

We have now traced this investigation from the centuries-old mechanics of Hawala and Undiyal, through the three-stage architecture that turns criminal proceeds into apparently legitimate wealth, to the AI-generated frontier of digital financial crime reshaping all of it at machine speed.

In our concluding instalment, Part IV: “Sri Lanka at the Crossroads: Economic Consequences, Organised Crime and the Road Ahead”, we bring this series home. We examine precisely what all of this costs Sri Lanka in hard economic terms: lost remittances, exchange rate pressure, tax revenue forgone, and the 2026 FATF evaluation that will determine whether the country’s institutions can demonstrate, with evidence rather than legislation alone, that they are equal to this challenge. We close with a practical policy roadmap.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe.
Views expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

‘There are no private universities in Sri Lanka’ – some considerations for higher education reform

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/21

Thilina Walpola

Academics involved in education policy like to say that there is no such thing as a private university in Sri Lanka. The only ‘universities’ in the country are state universities; anything else offering degrees is a private higher education institution (HEI). This position is technically accurate. Yet, in the discourse and imagination of the public, private universities are very real – people teach in them, students register in them, families pay fees, and such degree holders enter job markets in Sri Lanka and outside.

For decades, activists concerned for public higher education have ignored or resisted looking at private HEIs, as if such scrutiny would taint them. Others have worked in both types of institutions, carrying practices from each to the other. The apex body governing state universities, the UGC, has, meanwhile, ignored the concept of conflict of interest and appointed individuals in private higher education in committees and leadership positions. It is unsurprising then that some of the ideologies informing private higher education appear in reform agendas in the state sector.

This is a good time then to consider the varying types of private HEIs around us, and to take a look at some of the issues within them in the hope that higher education reform agendas will include private, as well as state higher education.

What is a ‘private university’?

First, some clarifications. In the public imaginary, a ‘private university’ is typically an institution that provides a foreign or local degree for which the student makes a payment. But this broad classification encompasses a host of diverse institutions and types of degrees which I detail below.

The Non-State Higher Education Division (NSHE) of the Ministry of Education has recognised 295 degrees by 32 institutions. Most of these are private companies and include a handful of established, well-known private HEIs that are ‘university like’. The degrees are local degrees conferred by the institutions accredited by the NSHE Division. While private HEIs conferring local degrees must be accredited by the NSHE Division, there appears to be no legal consequence for not doing so. In addition, there are several permutations of the private degree that miss the net of this Division and the Standing Committee on Accreditation and Quality Assurance (SCAQA) that assists this Division.

For one, degrees conferred by foreign universities offered, via these same private HEIs, are not vetted by the NSHE Division. Secondly, there is a growing plethora of private HEIs which have either no physical presence locally or only a dubious presence. The University Grants Commission has notified the public, through their website, that foreign universities listed in the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook and the World Higher Education Database are recognised, but refrained from giving any other details – which degrees? Offered by what modes? These details are not known. Some of the foreign universities in the lists may be legitimate entities in their own land but the degrees conferred locally, in their name, may not adhere to curriculum or teaching specifications of the NSHE Division or the UGC.

Another troubling phenomenon is the ‘top up degree’, which appears to work on the same principle as that of a pre-paid mobile connection: if I have a Diploma or an HND of a sort, I am eligible to complete a course of study which provides me with a degree, usually from a foreign university. The idea that someone who does not initially qualify for a degree programme should be able to work their way towards one is a progressive notion. This is the concept that open and distance learning (ODL) was based on initially, but which is now sadly exploited. ODL models are expected to provide opportunity for learning for those who may be excluded from traditional learning institutions. In Sri Lanka, however, we have seen ODL become a marketplace offering easy to obtain, for-fee qualifications by institutions with little commitment to superior teaching and learning.

Finally, a perusal of the many types of private HEIs and their varied degrees bring to mind another question – how should the private degrees, provided by state institutions (that are not educational institutions), be regulated? Who should do so?

All of these create a host of problems for the public – for hopeful students and parents and trusting employers. For the higher education sector, recruitment of academic staff, too, has become difficult due to this plethora of ambiguous higher education qualifications, as I discussed in a previous Kuppi article (‘Recruiting academics to state universities’).

Some issues in private HEIs – a bellwether for change in state universities

In this second part of this article, I will discuss some aspects of work in private HEIs – albeit the more established institutions – given that such issues may appear in reform agendas in future.

Across state universities, all permanent staff of a specific category are paid according to the same criteria. The picture is not so clear when it comes to private HEIs since they are different entities legally, typically companies. Private HEIs have salary scales and financial incentives that are different to each other. The more established private HEIs reportedly have attractive renumeration packages, possibly a reason for academics of state universities migrating eagerly to such institutions during sabbatical years and on retirement. This may not of course be the case with other less established, or improperly registered HEIs of which we know little. Academic staff of these more accepted private HEIs seem to value the high financial remuneration they receive (in comparison to state universities) as something that makes their work rewarding.

Attractive remuneration is important to sustain the good life and is at times seen as the institution’s way of encouraging good work. Yet, this has implications for the future of the institution: to continue to deliver on promised financial packages, institutions must continue to have large profit margins. One strategy has been to enroll multiple cohorts of students per year, even up to three or four intakes per year. This can result in exploitative work conditions, since staff must cater to all these cohorts in that same year. If there is inadequate staff, employees are further burdened. On the other hand, if there is a sudden drop in enrolments (degrees can go out of fashion) unexpected layoffs occur. Similar to other sectors that employ short-term contract staff – including state universities – in private HEIs, too, individual teachers, who are on short term contracts that need regular renewal, can feel pressured to work under difficult or exploitative conditions.

At the same time, even in the more established private HEIs, work norms differ from those of state universities in that they include promotional work that keeps the institution’s name in the eye of the public. The Marketing (or similarly named) unit comes up in conversations as one of the most important departments. It appears to weigh in on decision-making related to the number of staff, the amount of re-sits per exams, and other pedagogically important matters. This is a worrying example of how financial rationales interfere with pedagogically or academically sound processes, resulting in problematic results in the classroom. On the plus side, junior colleagues, who had experience in both state and private HEIs, also felt that they faced less harassment in private HEIs – primarily due to the private HEIs ability to take swift action in reported cases of harassment. This is a real indictment on state institutions and their reluctance to address chronic issues of harassment in our universities.

Yet, while we hear much about problems in state universities, we hardly hear of problems that staff in private HEIs face. One rationale for a lack of public expressions by staff is that expressions of discontent might lead to trouble given the importance of reputation for private HEIs. The worry about reputational damage is a growing concern in state universities, too, as evidenced by social media policies and internal conversations on reputational damage, consequent to negative publicity. Institutional worries of reputational damage are harmful in the long run since these impact not only freedom of expression by student and staff, but also research that is possible in and about the education sector.

Some thoughts at the end…

A close look at the private higher education sector is important given its strong presence in the country. Impending reform needs to regulate this diverse array of higher education offerings in the private sector, as well as the state institutions that offer privately-funded options of higher education (a topic for a separate Kuppi on its own). It is time we carefully considered how to build a whole system of higher education out of this broken mess.

Kaushalya Perera is a senior lecturer at the University of Colombo.

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

Features

Ready for solo spotlight

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/21

Thilina Walpola

Nish Peiris: Excited about future plans

Singer Nish Peiris is set to take the next big step in her music journey.

The talented vocalist, who has been seen and heard in the scene here for a short while, and was also featured with the now-defunct band, Inner Vision, has announced that she will be fully committing to her solo career, after completing her degree this year.

“I’m finishing my degree this year, and after that I’ll be fully committing to my solo music career,” Nish told The Island.

“I’ve already got a few tours lined up for next year, so I’m really excited for what’s ahead.”

Fans, no doubt, will remember Nish for her smooth voice and stage presence, and the good news is that she is now ready to chart her own path and bring new music to audiences at home and abroad.

With tours already planned for 2027, the year 2026 promises to be an exciting year for the young artiste as she steps into the spotlight on her own.

We wish Nish every success in this new chapter!