 His father B. Nagappa was an agriculturist in Hosakere, Andagar, a small village near Koppa town situated near the holy town of Sringeri in Karnataka, India.He attended his entire schooling in Andagar and Koppa and studied in Kannada medium.After his bachelor's degree in science in 1963 and engineering in 1967 from Mysore University, he took his master's degree in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1969.