I'm not being funny but have you considered times? I know it isn't modern, but it was created for poor ink and paper. You have the advantage of better paper and ink so it will look good. You will be hard pressed to get a font that looks sharp with and inkjet on 80gsm, as by its nature the ink bleeds. Do you have access to a laser printer?
you may want to try a better grade paper, this should combat the bleeding and give the fonts a sharper appearance.
A nice modern serifed font? Bodoni
http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/atf-bodoni/

Hope that helps.

hi I totally understand you. i'm sick of using Times. and you are right paper matters too, although right now I print on 100 gsm, usually it's 80gsm. by modern i meant fonts created or designed in the past let's say 10 years. thank you for your reply.

Maybe consider something designed for newsprint, like Mercury, Miller or Coranto (Ungers stuff is wonderful). Btw, Arnhem is a great alternative to Times.

I think Frode's suggestion is a clever one, and it allows me to toot my own horn: some years ago Patria was used to set an issue of a provincial newspaper, and the results -especially at smaller sizes- were encouraging. It comes in four weights with italics and a "bonus" slanted-Roman cut. And Armenian, but you probably don't need that. :-)

Here's a PDF of a spread from the Creative Review awards of 2006:
http://themicrofoundry.com/ad/CR.pdf
You can also see photos of it in action:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/4177918056/
Let me know if you'd like fuller specimens.

hhp

Miller is soooo nice! But I think that you are right with Coranto, that would be my choice. I would still be worried with the bleeding, do you think that it could stand it? What point size would you be printing Typeraisin?

wow interesting suggestions. well depending on x-height, my choice of size varies from 10 to 12 when i'm setting type for printing. since you mentioned fonts for newspapers, i really like Guardian fonts. What are your opinions on that?

Modern: Age of modernity (1800-1950) or modern as in contemporary?

Serif for bad printing conditions, designed for cheap printing situation would be for example Karmina. There is a serif and a sans.
http://www.type-together.com/Karmina

Guardian is very nice (although it might look a bit big even at 10 point).

hhp

modern as in contemporary. thank you for the pointer Mr. Hrant.

Just remembered that Dalton Maag have developed some nice serifed fonts have a look at Pan
I think that might be something for you to look into.

http://www.daltonmaag.com/browse/fonts/dama/pan

or something more like Guardian

http://www.daltonmaag.com/browse/fonts/dama/cordale